Rangers eliminated with another 1-goal loss in Game 6 | NHL.com

SUNRISE, Fla. — The New York Rangers finally ran into a team they could not solve. 

Worse yet, the Florida Panthers stole their resolve.

“I don’t think you can say they don’t deserve to win,” Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said. “I think they definitely deserved to win series. We were right there, but just came up a little short.”

Six games in the Eastern Conference Final, four losses, the last three by one goal, and it’s all over, leaving the Rangers thinking about what could have been in this once-magical season instead of getting ready for Game 7 and talking about what still could be.

The Panthers eliminated the Rangers from the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a 2-1 win in Game 6 at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday, sending the Presidents’ Trophy winners into the offseason earlier than they thought and believed would happen.

“It just felt special this year,” Trouba said. “It felt like we had something in this room. There was a bond.”

Only one team can win the Stanley Cup each year, only two can get to the Stanley Cup Final, so being among the final four standing is no small thing and does not mean this Rangers season that featured a franchise-record 55 wins and 114 points was wasted or lost or meaningless.

But for the first time all season the Rangers could not come up with the big goal or the momentum-swinging power play, staples of their game that created their resilient identity this season that led to an NHL-record 34 comeback wins between the regular season and playoffs.

They scored 12 goals in six games, but take away the five they had in Game 3 and it’s seven in the other five games, including zero in Game 1 and one in Game 6.

“It was difficult to score,” coach Peter Laviolette said. “Ultimately, that’s something we were able to do pretty consistently throughout the course of the year. You look at the scores, you look at the games, low-scoring, one-goal games, and ultimately I think just trying to find that next goal inside of a game could be the difference.”

The last five games of the series were all decided by one goal; the Rangers could not find the right side of that small margin in Games 4, 5 and 6 after slipping through with overtime wins in Games 2 and 3. 

They lost 3-0 in Game 1, but even that was 1-0 until an own-goal off the stick of Alexis Lafrenière made it 2-0 with 3:48 remaining in the third period and an empty-net goal sealed it.

“They got to their game more consistently,” forward Chris Kreider said. “They were dialed in on what they were doing and they broke the puck out 99 percent of the time on the strong side. We needed to do a better job knowing that was the case and we did it in spurts. There were opportunities for us to generate offense going low to high, shooting pucks quick, spreading them out in the ‘D’ zone. We did it in spurts. They got to their game more often than we did.”