Sam Reinhart’s power-play goal 1 minute and 12 seconds into overtime in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals evened the series between the Florida Panthers and the New York Rangers.
The series now returns to Madison Square Garden on Thursday night with each team winning two games a piece.
After the Rangers won Games 2 and 3 in overtime, this time it was Florida’s turn to get an extra victory as Reinhart scored a quick finish.
The decisive penalty was drawn by Blake Wheeler, who was sent to the sin bin for hooking.
Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe also scored for Florida, which got 21 saves (and an assist) from Sergei Bobrovsky.
The Florida Panthers tied the Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Rangers
A goal by Sam Reinhart (13) just 1:12 into overtime sealed the deal for the Panthers.
Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafrenière scored for the Rangers and Igor Shesterkin stopped 37 shots.
Game 5 is Thursday in New York, where the teams split the first two matchups of this series. Game 6 will be on Saturday at Sunrise, and the Prince of Wales Trophy, awarded to the Eastern champions, will be on display that night.
Bennett put Florida on the board midway through the second period on a second try.
His first shot went over Shesterkin, but didn’t go into the net, and Bennett, who followed the shot, managed to get to the puck before anyone else. He threw it off the back of the goalie’s skate and it barely crossed the goal line.
And 3 1/2 minutes later, Florida had the lead on a Verhaeghe pinball goal.
Matthew Tkachuk centered the puck from the right corner and it deflected off Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren’s stick. In the air, he bounced off Shesterkin, then off Lindgren’s upper body, and Verhaeghe, with more baseball swing than anything else, hit it in the air for a 2-1 Florida lead.
Including the playoffs, over the past two seasons, Florida entered Tuesday with an NHL-best 81-2-6 record in games in which it led after 40 minutes.
Lafrenière didn’t care. A neat spin move by Adam Fox gave him the puck on the left side of the box and he scored it with 16:32 left for his third goal in the last two games.
Alexis Lafrenière scored the goal that forced extra time in the third period of the contest
The rest of the regulation was crazy. Back and forth, the game feels more like a 3-on-3 regular-season overtime than anything else, from end to end: Bobrovsky making some point-blank stops, Shesterkin once again getting attacked just as he was late in Game 3 without Florida. leverage.
And for the third game in a row, they went to overtime.
Trocheck opened the scoring on a power play, on a play in which he won a faceoff, moved to the high slot, waited for a centering pass from Artemi Panarin and fired a perfect shot, an inch or two beyond the right side. by Bobrovsky. He heads, kissing her from the underside of the crossbar towards the goal.
Then, the crossbar gives way to the Rangers’ power play. He missed the next one, when the inch game went in favor of the Panthers.
New York staggered Florida later in the first period when Brandon Montour was in the box to cross-check.
Mika Zibanejad was alone on the left side of the box and shot toward an open goal, but the puck hit Bobrovsky’s shoulder. bounced to the crossbar – and this time, it bounced into the box, just outside the goal line as the Panthers trailed just 1-0.