Game 1 Shutout Lifts Strong Panthers Over Sluggish NY Rangers

Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals dropped the puck at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday evening. Standing in the “Blue(shirts)” corner on home ice, the 2024 NHL Regular Season President Trophy-winning, New York Rangers. Lazily lounging in the “Red” corner, the reigning, defending 2023 Eastern Conference Champion, Florida Panthers.  

With the hockey world on notice, the battle to represent the Eastern Conference in the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals showcased two evenly-matched clubs with exceptional goaltending. 

In Game 1, Florida seized control of the crucial home-ice advantage with the shutout.

Florida Panthers Strike First To Take Game 1

Matthew Tkachuk slashed the Rangers for the opening goal of Game 1 in the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals late in the first period. With 3 and a half minutes on the clock, Tkachuk scored his 5th goal of the playoffs after receiving a pass from Gustav Forsling and then ripping a shot past Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin for the 1-0 lead.

Florida kept the pressure applied all game before it finally paid off late in the third period. Carter Verhaeghe essentially ended Game 1 with his 7th goal of the postseason for Florida. Sam Bennett scored his third goal of the NHL Playoffs into the empty net to finish the scoring for the Panthers, 3-0, in Game 1.  

Bobrovsky Spectacular in First Shutout of 2024 Playoffs

This is not the first Playoff experience for the Florida Panthers’ 35-year-old goalie. With the shutout victory last night over the Rangers, Sergei Bobrovsky evened up his playoff record to a clean .500 mark. The padded Russian backstop is 38-38 in 11 postseason appearances with three NHL franchises – Philadelphia, Columbus & Florida. 

“They are a good team, we did a really good defense, we executed our system,” the veteran netminder said. “It’s a big win for us. A game we can build on. … It’s one game. There’s still a lot of hockey to play. We have to keep grinding.”

“Bob” is continuing a streak of exceptional postseason performances. In first game of the series, Bobrovsky had stopped 23 pucks, which by my math, is 100% of the shots he faced! During Florida’s journey to the Stanley Cup Finals last year, Bobrovsky was 12-6 and stopped 92% of the shots directed his way. 

Rangers Opportunity To Respond Friday Night

Head Coach Peter Laviolette, like Sergei Bobrovsky, has seen some playoff hockey in his lifetime. He has coached 165 Postseason games as an NHL bench boss to be exact. “Lavy” has coached 6 different franchises to the NHL Playoffs, including both the Islanders and the Rangers.  The Rangers head coach said he and his staff will take the off day to assess Game One and come up with a new gameplan for Friday evening: 

“We can play better, that wasn’t the best version of ourselves,” the New York coach said postgame. “We’ll look to see what they did, see what we can do better in all areas of the game. There’s more for us to give, more for us to do out there.”

The Rangers looked incredibly sluggish in Game 1, while that did not seem to be the case for Florida. Both teams had almost the same amount of rest between series.  New York finished their series win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday, 05/16. Florida finished off the Boston Bruins the following night on Friday, 05/17, also in Game 6.