NEW YORK – Barclay Goodrow’s playoff pedigree paid off for the Rangers in a huge moment.
They were staring down the possibility of losing back-to-back home games to begin this Eastern Conference Final when the two-time champion reminded everyone why he was a priority add a few summers ago. Goodrow scored the winning goal with 5:59 remaining in overtime, giving the Blueshirts a much-needed 2-1 victory over the Panthers in Game 2 on Friday at Madison Square Garden.
That evened the series at 1-1 as they shift to Florida for Game 3, which will be played Sunday at 3 p.m.
“To see him score a goal like that tonight is awesome because his role doesn’t always consist of that,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s not always in the offensive zone. It’s not on the power play, but when you see somebody who does so many other things that helps a team be successful, you’re really happy for a guy like that when he can make a huge impact in the game tonight offensively.”
This wasn’t the typical greasy goal you’d expect from a grinding, fourth-liner.
Goodrow received a pass from Vincent Trocheck in the high slot and ripped a top-shelf wrister past Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to make the Garden shake. It came shortly after he won a defensive-zone faceoff, capping a 10-for-13 night on the dots (77%) that also included five hits and four blocked shots.
“I don’t really remember exactly how it went in,” Goodrow said. “I just remember Troch giving a great pass to me and (Will Cuylle) was driving the net and opening up the lane, so it’s great play by those two.”
A ‘useful tool’
The 31-year-old forward seems slightly uncomfortable as the center of attention because he’s used to doing the little things that often go unnoticed.
He’s a key part of the Rangers’ penalty kill, which has ranked as one of the NHL’s best throughout these playoffs, and often takes on some of the toughest defensive responsibilities. Those are his primary roles, which won’t earn him many headlines but undoubtedly earns appreciation from those in the locker room.
“Everybody knows what he brings to the team,” Trocheck said. “Every night, he’s going to bring the same game. We use him in all different situations. He’s a guy that you can count on defensively and you know he’s going to bring his best effort every night, play physical. In these playoffs he’s been outstanding for us on both ends of the ice.”
The amazing part is that Goodrow’s coming off a regular season in which he scored four goals in 80 games played, his lowest total since 2016-17 when he appeared in only three games. He’s now matched that total in just 12 playoff contests, including a pair of game-winners.
Fans often point to his contract as being too rich for a fourth-liner, but you won’t hear complaints about that again any time soon. That’s because he’s proving his worth as the type of player whose intangibles elevate his value at this time of year.
“When you get a player that can do everything where a coach can rely on that person, that’s a pretty useful tool in the toolbox,” Laviolette said. “He takes faceoffs. He plays all three forward positions. You want him out there at the end of the game if you’re winning the hockey game. You can match him up against top lines. He brings physicality. He brings leadership. He brings a lot of qualities inside of our room. He’s a great teammate. And, so, when you get a player like that, you appreciate it as a coach because of all the things that he brings to the table.”
‘Jiminy Crickets’
The win came on the heels of a few notable lineup changes for the Rangers.
The most surprising decision from Laviolette was sitting Kaapo Kakko, marking the first healthy scratch for the 23-year-old forward since Game 6 of the 2022 Eastern Conference Final. It turned him into a scapegoat for the lack of production from the entire bottom-six forward group, which has largely struggled to score outside of Goodrow, while raising questions about his role moving forward.
Jack Roslovic slid down to take Kakko’s place on the third line, while Filip Chytil bumped up to play right wing alongside Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad.
Kaapo Kakko:Young forward defends play, takes high road regarding possible scratch
Chytil finished with 20:09 time on ice while attempting five shots, three that ended up on net, and blocking two shots. He was nearly the hero minutes before Goodrow when he gathered a rebound and had a look at a wide-open net, but his shot was blocked by Florida defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s backside.
Last but not least − and much to the enjoyment of the MSG crowd − popular rookie Matt Rempe was reinserted on the fourth line after being scratched in the previous two games.
The 6-foot-8 forward easily logged his highest TOI total of the playoffs, playing 10:06 that included five third-period shifts and one more in OT.
“I heard Lavi call my name and I grabbed my stuff,” Rempe said with a smile while describing his joy at getting his name called in overtime. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God. Jiminy Crickets! Let’s go!’”
The Rangers were out-chanced, 6-0, with the 21-year-old on the ice, according to Natural Stat Trick, but he did have a noticeable impact with a game-high nine hits while avoiding costly mistakes or penalties.
It’s impossible to deny the energy he brought to the building, as well, with the home crowd chanting his name on his first couple shifts.
“I had the time of my life out there,” Rempe said. “I thought I was moving my feet really well, getting in on the forecheck, making lots of hits, playing real physical and mean.”
Buzzing early, then goalie duel breaks out
The Rangers came out with extra juice to begin Game 2, but it didn’t have much to do with their tweaks to the bottom six. It was the top six driving the bus with a ramped up forecheck that led to a few early scoring chances, with Trocheck converting one of them into a 1-0 lead.
Alexis Lafrenière’s hit on Carter Verhaeghe cleared the slot, leaving the Blueshirts in a two-on-one situation. Adam Fox calmly slid a pass to Trocheck for the tap-in goal at the 4:12 mark, with the assist snapping a five-game point drought for New York’s top defenseman.
“That goal was a lot of Laffy,” Fox said. “He might not get an assist on it, but if he doesn’t throw that hit, they might be going the other way. It was sitting there right for me and I saw Troch going backdoor.”
While the Rangers’ top six was buzzing, the bottom six had some early hiccups.
The third line, which had produced a 54.7% shot share while allowing only two goals against in 11 previous playoff games with Kakko, was outshot 3-0 in the opening period, while the fourth line got caught a couple times. The first resulted in a Ryan Lomberg breakaway that was saved by Igor Shesterkin, but a late-period sequence resulted in the equalizer for Florida.
An icing allowed the Panthers to put their top line out for an offensive-zone faceoff against the Jimmy Vesey-Goodrow-Rempe trio, with Aleksander Barkov then using his acting skills to draw an interference penalty on Goodrow.
Florida cashed in on the ensuing power play, with Verhaeghe toe-dragging Alex Wennberg in the high slot and beating Shesterkin through the five hole. That made it 1-1 with 1:51 remaining in the period, thwarting some of the momentum the Rangers had built.
Those lines did get better as the game wore on, though, with the second period featuring back and forth action from both sides, including Wennberg and Barkov each hitting the post on near misses. But the Blueshirts lost Vesey to a hit from Lomberg, with the team ruling him out for the remainder of the game with an upper-body injury. That forced them to play down one forward for the final 27:45 of regulation and then in OT.
A goalie duel developed in the final two periods of regulation, with Shesterkin and Bobrovsky trading quality saves. None were bigger than the former’s blocker save on Anton Lundell early in the third period after New York’s defense lost track of the Panthers’ center in transition.
“He’s certainly been terrific in the playoffs,” Laviolette said of Shesterkin, who finished with 25 saves to up his postseason save percentage to .928. “When you’re trying to win a hockey game to make sure that you do put the win in and even the series 1-1, you’re going to need some saves. You’re going to need some timely saves, and there were a couple of big ones to make where they got behind us and I thought he came up huge on a couple of instances. … To me, that’s a difference maker in a game.”
‘Bringing our A game’
The Panthers had some noisy chances, as Laviolette likes to say, but they were limited to 26 shots because the Rangers took on the role of aggressor.
After Florida had them on their heels for much of Game 1, the Blueshirts pushed back in Game 2. They made smarter plays with the puck to cut down on turnovers, looked more engaged in 50-50 battles and upped their intensity on the forecheck, with that assertiveness leading to more sustained offensive-zone time.
“I think it was just more emphasis on bringing our ‘A’ game tonight,” Trocheck said. “We didn’t love the way we played in Game 1. We didn’t love our execution. I thought tonight we came out right out of the jump with more energy. Our forecheck was a lot better tonight. We didn’t give them very much. I think overall we just liked our game a lot better.”
The Panthers had a push of their own at times, but the Rangers owned overtime.
They forced the issue and were credited with four high-danger scoring chances without allowing any in those 14-plus minutes, culminating with Goodrow’s clutch finish.
That ensured they would overcome an 0-for-4 night from the power play, and while generating more offense remains a obvious area to improve, they’ll also need to maintain the same style and swagger they showed Friday to go toe-to-toe with this dangerous Florida team.
“I thought throughout the whole game, we played well,” Fox said. “We simplified things a bit more, got it in behind them, got on the forecheck a little more and didn’t let them just come in too easy. We just carried that momentum in overtime.”
Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Read more of his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.
