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5/22 Florida Panthers @ New York Rangers

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Florida Panthers @ New York Rangers 8:00pm EST

Panthers ML -110 (1u)


Headed to Madison Square Garden for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers. Florida finished off their series in 6 games over the Boston Bruins last Friday in Boston, taking the deciding game 2-1. Sergei Bobrovsky was excellent in this game for the Panthers, making a couple of key saves that would swing the momentum for Florida to find a 3rd period winner. It was Forsling who was able to net it past Swayman, and Matthew Tkachuk provided the assist for what would be his 14th point of the playoffs. Tkachuk had been quiet in Games 4 and 5 for the Panthers, but he was able to break through and get the series -deciding assist. He was on a tear against the Lightning in Round 1, scoring a point in every game of that series and scoring 2+ points in 4 games out of 5.


Tonight, they will face the Presidents' Trophy winners who are coming off a scare against the Carolina Hurricanes. New York won the first 3 games of the series against the Hurricanes, with two of them going into OT, then proceeded to lose the next two and send it to Raleigh, NC, where the Canes would have a chance to send it back to MSG. This was stifled by Chris Kreider notching a 3rd period hat-trick as the Rangers would go on to win Game 6 and book their ticket to the ECF. In Games 4 and 5, Carolina seemed to get their defense more involved in the attack for the Hurricanes, and this gave the Rangers issues. Tonight, they will face a new cast of characters that will not only shut you down defensively, but also get pucks on net and into tight areas and provide goal -scoring opportunities for the Panthers. Defensemen like Ekblad, Ekman-Larsson, Montour, and Forsling are more than capable of getting points and causing chaos for the Rangers.


Florida and New York have met 3 times this year with the Panthers taking the season series 2-1. These two met once in Florida with the Panthers taking a 3-2 win and twice in New York where the Panthers won 4-2 and New York won 4-3 in OT. In their latest meeting, which occurred on March 23, even though the Panthers lost this game, they dominated this game. They were able to "shrink the ice" and really force the pucks into tight areas that can really come back to bite the Rangers. We saw this happen in the Hurricanes series as it seemed like the Canes had chance after chance to score some dirty goals and couldn't find the back of the net. Florida is definitely a team that is able to convert on their opportunities. Coming from the Florida locker room themselves, Barkov has stated that they are a defense-first unit that will grind you out and make life difficult. You really didn't see too much of this in the Boston series because both teams just wanted to inflict pain on the other.


Give us the Panthers tonight in MSG to go into a very hostile environment and quiet a Rangers crowd early. This one will be sweaty, no doubt about it, but this is playoff hockey and these are the Eastern Conference Finals and coming off last year's disappointment in the Stanley Cup Final, I think Florida is hungrier to get back. Look for Panthers stars like Barkov, Tkachuk, and Reinhart to shine tonight in the Big Apple.

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