Game 5 takeaways: Rangers improve, but get pushed to brink of elimination by Panthers

NEW YORK ‒ You could make a fine case that the Rangers played better Thursday than they had in previous playoff games they've won, but the hockey gods can be cruel.

So, too, can the Florida Panthers.

The mighty Cats were right there with them, absorbing the push back and showing their own steely resolve to hand the Blueshirts a 3-2 loss in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final at Madison Square Garden. That gave Florida a 3-2 series lead while pushing New York to the brink of elimination for the first time this postseason.

"Every game has been super close like that," Chris Kreider said. "It’s obviously a very tight game, so we’ve just got to continue to get pucks and bodies to the net and not let it all come out in the wash."

It's typically been the Rangers who come out on top in games like Thursday's. After all, they're the team that broke the NHL's record for combined comeback wins between the regular season and playoffs with 34.

That's why we like to say they lead the league in Finding Ways To Win per 60, but the Panthers are proving to be on par in the clutch moments and very difficult to beat at pretty much all times. The reigning conference champs emerged from two evenly-matched periods and turned up the heat in the third, culminating with Anton Lundell's go-ahead goal off the rush with 9:38 to play.

"We have experience of what it's like to be on the bench and down one or even in the game," Florida coach Paul Maurice said. "I do believe that's exponential."

That means the Rangers will be playing to save their season as we shift to Sunrise, where Game 6 will take place Saturday at 8 p.m.

Their dream of ending the franchise's 30-year Stanley Cup drought is officially hanging by a thread — and it’s going to take a 1994-like rally to keep it alive.

"Leave it all out there," captain Jacob Trouba said. "The goal is to go win one game. There's nothing to save it for. When your back is against the wall, everybody's got to bring their best game to survive another day."

Chris Kreider breaks through

One day after getting burned publicly by Matthew Tkachuk, who remarked to reporters Wednesday that Kreider tossing the Panthers' star's mouth guard during Game 4 was "the best play he made all game," Kreider mustered the best kind of comeback.

His response came on the ice, with the Rangers' veteran batting down an attempted pass from Tkachuk and using the takeaway to spring a shorthanded scoring opportunity. He tapped the puck to Mika Zibanejad, who let Kreider pick up speed before sending it right back for the breakaway.

Kreider did the rest, finishing with a backhanded shot past an outstretched Sergei Bobrovsky to put the Rangers on top, 1-0, at the 2:04 mark of the second period.

"He’s fast when he gets going," Zibanejad said. "I just put the puck in his hands and let him do what he can do."

This came after the Rangers' were victimized for two power-play goals in Game 4, and another that came seconds after a Florida PP expired. Their penalty kill was much sharper Thursday, resulting in their sixth shorthanded goal of the playoffs. That tied a franchise record dating back to 1979 and represents the highest total for any NHL team since the 2008 Detroit Red Wings.

It also marked the first points of the series for both Kreider and Zibanejad, who had been shutout in the previous four games.

"I thought they both played hard tonight," head coach Peter Laviolette said. "They certainly came out with the right intentions and they generated a lot more. I thought Chris was really noticeable. I thought Mika was moving to get things to Chris and make plays to him, so there were some positive things there."

Analysis:Rangers still can't figure out 1RW, but onus falls on Kreider, Zibanejad

A more evenly played game

The Panthers would offer their own response at the 8:21 mark, when Gustav Forsling split the defensive pair of Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren down the middle of the ice and finished with a backhanded shot that deflected in off Igor Shesterkin's left pad. Credit Sam Bennett with the key play on a no-look pass that found Forsling open right in front, with the resulting goal tying the score at 1-1.

It was all part of a pair of back-and-forth periods that felt much more evenly played than the previous two games.

Florida outshot the Rangers by a combined 77-46 margin in Games 3 and 4 while out-attempting them, 197-87. The majority of that time was spent with New York pinned in its own zone, but that was not the case for the first 40 minutes Thursday. Both teams generated quality looks, with Shesterkin and Bobrovsky largely up to the task.

The final shot attempts were almost identical − 71-70 Panthers − and although Natural Stat Trick credited Florida with a 21-14 advantage in high-danger scoring chances, time of possession wasn't nearly as lopsided as it had been entering Game 5.

"To me, it resembled the first two games here (in New York)," Laviolette said. "It's a game that's going back and forth. That's the way the first two games went. What we needed to do was try and eliminate some of that time that we were spending in the defensive zone. I thought we were able to do that tonight. We were able to get it, get out. There's only a couple of shifts in the course of the game where they did that."

Miller-Schneider pair reunites

The Blueshirts also benefited from a wise pregame tweak to their D pairs. They had played the first four games using K'Andre Miller and Trouba as their primary matchup duo, but, much like the rest of the Rangers, they were caved in for much of Games 3 and 4.

That prompted Laviolette to elevate Braden Schneider into Trouba's spot, with he and Miller putting together a strong all-around performance in Game 5.

They logged a heavy workload, with many of those minutes coming against Florida's top line of Carter Verhaeghe, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart. They kept them off the scoresheet while blocking more total shots (eight) than they allowed shots on goal (five).

"We were taking a lot of heat down in Florida, and for me, it was just a time to switch," Laviolette said. "The pairs have been together in the past. I thought they played well tonight. I thought they did a good job against that line, so that was a real positive coming out of it. We didn't spend nearly as much time defensively. We didn't give up as many opportunities at the net. I thought they did a good job."

That left Trouba to play a more sheltered role on the bottom pair with Erik Gustafsson, with that alignment seemingly the best way for the Rangers to move forward into Game 6.

Better, but not good enough

It was all working well for a while, but as they have throughout the series, the Panthers separated themselves in the final period.

They came out buzzing and applied pressure until they finally broke through on Lundell's winning goal. The 22-year-old capitalized off a three-on-two rush with a wrist shot that beat Shesterkin under his blocker, with Vladimir Tarasenko charging the net to set a key scree

Shesterkin finished with 34 saves and has been the Rangers' best player up to this point, but that Lundell shot will surely stick in his craw as a save he believes he should have had.

That made it 2-1 Florida, with Bennett sealing the win with an empty-netter with 1:52 remaining.

Alexis Lafrenière cut it to 3-2 with a late goal for his eighth tally of the playoffs, with Kreider and Zibanejad each earning their second points of the game on the play. But by then, it was too late.

The Rangers played better, but it still wasn't good enough.

"I thought we generated some good opportunities," Trouba said. "I thought we had a lot of rebound chances that were pretty close to being where they needed to be, just a little bit off. That's the difference. They played a good game, as well. It’s not things that we're always not doing. I think they do some things really well. I thought we generated a couple looks. Theirs went in."

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