New York’s top-six forwards, featuring Panarin, Lafreniere, Trocheck, Zibanejad, Kreider and Jack Roslovic, have accounted for 21 of the Rangers’ 26 goals in the playoffs. Panarin has four game-winners. Trocheck has one.
4. Resiliency
Maybe another team would have been deflated when Andrei Svechnikov scored with Kochetkov pulled for the extra skater at 18:24 of the third period to tie the game 2-2.
But just another team doesn’t win seven straight games to start the playoffs, two in a row in overtime, three in a row by one goal. It’s the first time the Rangers have done that since 1994, which is the last time they won the Stanley Cup.
There’s a long way to go to find out if there is any symmetry in that, but what is obvious to this point in the playoffs is these Rangers don’t get fazed when something goes against them.
“I’ll be honest, I was really confident just in the way we were playing the game,” New York coach Peter Laviolette said.
He was because of how the Rangers withstood Carolina’s furious push in the first period, an expected push with the Hurricanes down 2-0 in the series and feeding off their raucous home crowd, which was in full throat and waving towels.
Laviolette said he thought the Rangers got better defensively, better through the neutral zone and more dangerous offensively after the first period.
“That was the messaging going back out there [for overtime],” Laviolette said. “This is a resilient group and they’ve been in these situations before. Sending messages that we were doing the right things, we’re going to finish this just by what we’ve been through and the way we’re playing the game.”
Panarin stood up and said as much.
Then, after the Rangers had won the special teams battle, watched their goalie do everything he possibly could, their best player scored a clutch goal to prove their resiliency once again, putting them on the brink of another sweep.
“This one feels really good,” Zibanejad said.
