Rangers Could Be Perfect Cure for the Struggling Florida Panthers

FORT LAUDERDALE — If one thing has proven to get the Panthers going this season, it has been playing teams like the Rangers.

So far this season, the Panthers are 9-1 against teams they faced in the playoffs over the past two seasons.

That includes a 3-1 win over the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 24.

Of those nine wins, five came following losses.

After being shutout in its past two games, the struggling Rangers coming to town has to be a welcome visitor for Florida.

The Panthers, after all, played a terrific series against the Rangers last year, winning the Eastern Conference finals in 6.

“After a loss, there is a lot more bite and focus to our game,” Aaron Ekblad said. “Against playoff teams, it is very easy to get up. It is never easy in this league to come to the rink every day and be perfect. So, after a break and after a loss, it is important to find our game early.”

Paul Maurice, when asked about what ails the Rangers, said he has not paid enough attention to their problems.

The Rangers, before the Panthers played them last, were in a pretty good way at 5-0-1 coming in.

Since, the Rangers have been a traveling circus with a host of problems.

Not only is the team performing badly on the ice — New York has lost six of seven, with only one of those losses being by a single goal — but there are constant rumors about the fate of both GM Chris Drury and coach Peter Laviolette.

After winning the Presidents’ Trophy last season, New York comes into tonight’s game last in the Metropolitan Division and just a point better than the Sabres.

“I haven’t followed it that closely,” Maurice said. “I do know that this league is wholly and completely unforgiving. Over the course of the first three months, the difference between success and failure is one or two wins a month. That changes your plus and minus rating in terms of wins and losses, and you can feel really great about yourself or really low.

“That can happen to very, very good teams. I was in the Central Division when St. Louis went from being 31st to winning the Stanley Cup. I can’t give any insight into the why of it, but we saw them in Game 7 and they were 5-0-1 when we went in there. Pretty good record, pretty good team.”

The Rangers are, for the most part, the same team they were last season.

They still have heavy hitters such as Igor Shesterkin, Artemi Panerin, and Vincent Trocheck.

Yet they have lost their past two games by a combined 11-2.

The Panthers are expecting New York to come at them as they do to teams they had heated playoff series with.

“If anything, that gives them motivation to show up and play a really good game,” Ekblad said. “We have to expect that. If they’re going to play a really good game, it’s going to come against us since we beat them last year in the playoffs. We have to expect their best game and find a way to get to the game we know we have in the room.’’

Added Maurice: “We have to prepare for it, not guard against it. The idea that we can go in, play our game, and win is foolish. We know their game, they know ours. I think every game we have played against teams we faced in the playoffs have been hard, really good games. … We’ve lost two, they don’t like where they’re at. Now we play each other. Yeah, I think we’re going to have a heavy one.”