After the fifth game of the series between the New York Rangers ” and the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference finals, which ended in victory for the Panthers, the Blueshirts found themselves in a critical situation. It is customary to talk about such situations “without room for error.”
Interestingly, the Rangers have already faced a similar story. 30 years ago, when the New York club won its last Stanley Cup, in the Eastern finals the Blueshirts also lost the series after five games. And according to an identical schedule: they lost the first match, won the second and third, and then lost twice more in a row. But in 1994, the Rangers, along with the legendary promises of triumph from Mark Messier, made a comeback from 2-3 and took the sixth and seventh meetings. Many expected that Peter Laviolette's charges would take a step to repeat history. But no.
“Florida” was better than “Rangers” throughout the entire match. In the sixth game of the series “Panthers” did not change themselves and continued to bend their line, not giving the opponent a chance. However, “blueshirts” did not seem to be clinging to the opportunity to save themselves. As in previous meetings, today the team from New York looked nice only in the debut, but then again seemed to fall asleep. The need to recoup did not wake up the field players of “Rangers”.
At the end of the first period, the Panthers opened the scoring with a powerful and spectacular shot from Sam Bennett. After his high-speed shot, the puck acquired a rather unusual trajectory and flew out of the goal, barely crossing the line. Igor Shesterkin could not do anything in this situation, which cannot be said about Jacob Trouba and Vincent Trocheck. The Rangers captain was played rather childishly on his blue line, and Trocheck returned to the defense so imposingly that he carried out the Florida attack with one glance, without even trying to interrupt it.
Subsequently, Igor Shesterkin's possessions were attacked many, many more times. And with each of them it becomes more and more dangerous. As in previous matches in the series, the Russian goalkeeper was the only Rangers player who really did everything for his team's success. And, in principle, he remained the only bright spot for his club in this playoffs. Six helped out his teammates a lot and brightly. One of these saves happened after a spectacular throw by Vladimir Tarasenko. Stretching out in front of the goal, Shesterkin literally shouted to his teammates: “Wake up!”
But they didn’t hear. And the Rangers missed again. This time, Vladimir Tarasenko outplayed his compatriot and scored the winning goal in the match and the decisive one in the entire series. It’s even symbolic that the famous Russian forward condemned his former team, for which he played a year ago, to failure.
Everything was heading towards the fact that “Florida” would complete the series of the Eastern finals with shutouts of Sergei Bobrovsky. And the legendary Russian goalkeeper kept his possessions locked until the last, not letting anyone near them. However, at the very end of the meeting, one throw in his direction still reached its goal. And whose throw! Artemiy Panarin scored exclusively winning goals in this playoffs, but in the series against the Panthers he could not score a goal. And then he distinguished himself – in the last match of the season, in the last meeting with his close friend. Beautiful story.
Albeit inglorious for the Rangers. The Blueshirts were considered one of the main favorites to win the Stanley Cup throughout the season, but stopped prematurely after going just over halfway. Next comes Florida. The Panthers will play in the finals for the second time in a row. Now they are waiting to see who will be their opponent in the main battle of the year – Evgeniy Dadonov's Dallas Stars or Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl's Edmonton Oilers.
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