The Panthers are four wins away from reaching the Stanley Cup Final for the second year in a row, but they’re set to be challenged by the Rangers, who proved to be among the most balanced squads in the regular season, setting a franchise record in points with their 55-23-4 finish, and won their first seven playoff games along a path that saw them handily sweep win the Washington Capitals and eventually best the Carolina Hurricanes in six contests.
The Rangers can count on strength in nearly every aspect of the game. They have a former Vezina Trophy winner in Igor Shesterkin, and he’s playing up to his potential in the postseason with an 8-2 record, 2.40 GAA and .923 save percentage. If he gets injured? Then they can turn to three-time Stanley Cup champion Jonathan Quick. Sure, he’s 38 years old now, but he proved to be solid in the regular season with an 18-6-2 record, 2.62 GAA and .911 save percentage in 27 outings.
Even if the Rangers didn’t get good goaltending, though, they can adapt. New York ranked seventh in the regular season with 3.39 goals per game and has elevated in the playoffs to an average of 3.50. Artemi Panarin is coming off the best regular season of his career (49 goals, 120 points) and was backed up by Vincent Trocheck (25 goals, 77 points), Chris Kreider (39 goals, 75 points), Mika Zibanejad (26 goals, 72 points) and defenseman Adam Fox (17 goals, 73 points). To put all that into context, 52 players finished the 2023-24 campaign with at least 70 points, which adds up to an average of 1.625 players per team. The fact that the Rangers employed five of them speaks to their incredible depth.
That’s before you even get into Alexis Lafreniere, who came into his own this season with 28 goals and 57 points, providing the Rangers with another key weapon, or Blake Wheeler, who hasn’t played since Feb. 15 due to a leg injury, but is healthy now and provides the Rangers with another potential middle-six option should his services be needed.
In the likely event that the series turns physical, the Rangers are covered there too. Barclay Goodrow, Will Cuylle, Trocheck, defensemen Jacob Trouba and Braden Schneider are all happy to play a gritty game. If needed, the Rangers can also send out Matt Rempe. The 21-year-old rookie has been a healthy scratch in three of New York’s last four contests, but he’s already become a fan favorite and garnered national attention for his eagerness to play with intensity while taking full advantage of his 6-foot-7, 241-pound frame.
It's not hard to see how this roster reached the Eastern Conference Final or envision a path for them to win the Cup, but it’d still be wrong to dismiss the Panthers. Florida is one of the few teams that can measure up to the Rangers.
The Panthers had a similarly strong regular season, finishing atop the Atlantic Division with a 52-24-6 record, and they haven’t been made to sweat too much in the playoffs, dispatching Tampa Bay in five contests before getting past the Bruins in six games. Like the Rangers, Florida’s strengths are numerous.
Shesterkin being a former Vezina Trophy winner is impressive, but Panther’s goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky has done it twice, and he’s in the running to claim that honor for a third time after being named a finalist for 2023-24 after posting a 36-17-4 record, 2.37 GAA and .915 save percentage across 58 outings. Bobrovsky has been a somewhat mixed bag in the 2024 playoffs, but he is entering this series after posting a 1.62 GAA and a .921 save percentage over his past five starts, so his recent play doesn’t lend itself to much cause for concern.
Florida is also another team that doesn’t necessarily need great goaltending to win. The squad wasn’t quite as dominant offensively as the Rangers in the regular season, finishing 11th with 3.23 goals per game, but the Panthers have stepped up in the playoffs with an average of 3.55.
Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov, Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart have each supplied at least four goals and nine points through 11 postseason outings to lead the Panthers’ attack, but they’ve gotten plenty of support from Anton Lundell (two goals, nine points), Evan Rodrigues (three goals, six points) and defensemen Brandon Montour (three goals, eight points) and Gustav Forsling (two goals and seven points).
Just outside of the periphery, there are other Panthers forwards who might prove to be heroes at some point during this series. Sam Bennett has been limited to six playoff contests due to an upper-body injury, but he’s healthy now and has a respectable two goals and four points through six postseason appearances this year. Then there’s Vladimir Tarasenko, who has just two goals and five points across 11 playoff outings but shouldn’t be counted out after providing 23 goals and 55 points in 76 regular-season contests. He’s also a former Stanley Cup winner with 108 career postseason games under his belt, so as the pressure continues to grow, he could become a valuable locker-room presence.
Should this series get physical, the Panthers also have players who can respond, most notably Bennett and Tkachuk.
These teams aren’t without their flaws. Though Shesterkin has been largely masking it, the Rangers’ defensive play in front of him has left something to be desired. New York has an xGA/60 of 3.24 in the playoffs, which suggests that if you factor out Shesterkin, the defense itself has been mediocre to poor, and well below that of Florida with its xGA/60 of 2.62. At the same time, Bobrovsky’s inconsistency makes it hard to know what the Panthers are going to get, even if he has performed well recently.
Still, these are two teams extremely deserving of their place among the final four postseason squads, and seeing them battle it out will be a real treat.
KEY MATCHUPS
Igor Shesterkin vs. Sergei Bobrovsky
At their best, both of these netminders are incredibly hard to get anything by. They’ve had their share of rough patches too, and they each have their work cut out for them against the opposing offense in this series, but either goaltender has the potential to rise up and steal this series. To some extent, Bobrovsky did that in the second round when he shut the door on Boston by allowing just eight goals on 101 shots over the last five contests, though he had substantial help from his defense. Shesterkin was similarly lights out in the Rangers’ opening series, limiting Washington to seven goals on 101 shots over four games.
Will either of these two be the MVP of the Eastern Conference Final?
Sam Reinhart vs. Artemi Panarin
The Panthers and Rangers’ regular season scoring leaders have made their presence felt in the playoffs, but both still have room for improvement. Panarin ranks third offensively on the Rangers with four goals and 11 points through 10 postseason appearances this year while Reinhart is tied for fourth with five goals and nine points across 11 playoff outings. It’s worth noting that both of these players rose to the occasion in the season series -- Reinhart finished with four goals and five points in three outings against the Rangers while Panarin supplied three goals and four points versus the Panthers -- so they should rise to the occasion in the Eastern Conference Final.
Brandon Montour vs. Adam Fox
On paper, the battle of top offensive defensemen in one area where the Rangers should have the clear edge. Florida didn’t have a blueliner reach the 40-point milestone in 2023-24 with Montour crashing from 73 points in 80 appearances in 2022-23 to 33 points across 66 regular-season contests this year. Meanwhile, Fox has surpassed the 70-point milestone in three consecutive campaigns.
However, Fox has been quiet offensively in the postseason with four helpers through 10 contests and is entering this series on a four-game scoring drought. Meanwhile, Montour has stepped up with three goals and eight points through 11 playoff games. It’ll be interesting to see how these two perform in this series, especially because Fox did so well in the Rangers’ previous two postseason runs, recording five goals and 31 points across 27 outings.
X-FACTOR
Florida Panthers: Bobrovsky is the Panthers’ biggest question mark. It could be argued that I’ve made too much of the 35-year-old goaltender’s inconsistencies, especially after he put forth a season worthy of Vezina Trophy consideration, but when I think about him being unpredictable, I’m not just referring to a few bad playoff performances or some cold stretches during the regular season. Bobrovsky’s career has been one of extremes with him being dominant at times and a disaster at others. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that he was strong against the Rangers in the regular season, posting a 2-0-1 record, 2.59 GAA and .919 save percentage, so that coupled with the strong play we noted above in the second round provide reason for optimism.
New York Rangers: I noted above about the Rangers’ mediocre defense outside of Shesterkin, and that’s a potentially big problem. It’s also not one that’s completely new either. During the regular season, the Rangers ranked 13th in xGA/60 at 3 while Florida tied for fourth with a 2.78 xGA/60. That gap growing in the playoffs is troubling and potentially is New York’s biggest weakness going forward.
PREDICTION
Through the first seven games of the playoffs, the Rangers looked like a team of destiny. Sweeping the Capitals was noteworthy, but Washington wasn’t a great team, so the outcome wasn’t shocking. Taking a 3-0 lead on Carolina, though? That’s special and drew allusions to the Cup-winning 1994 Rangers, who also started their playoff run 7-0.
Some of that glean wore off the Rangers when they dropped Games 4 and 5, but this group still feels like the team to beat. Perhaps the Panthers can do it, they’re certainly a force in their own right, but I suspect New York will edge past them in seven games.
