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The Rangers get a reality check from the defending champions

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NEW YORK – The Rangers don't want to make this a Florida thing, but the immediate results speak for themselves.

Thursday's 3-1 loss at Madison Square Garden came against the same Panthers team that had its Stanley Cup dreams dashed in the Eastern Conference finals last season. But in the eyes of the Blueshirts, their first regulation loss of the new season was due more to their own poor play than anything the defending champions did to them.

“They’re a good team,” veteran Chris Kreider said. “But it didn’t matter who we played tonight because we would have given the other team a lot of chances.”

It's true that the Rangers (5-1-1) were their own worst enemy at times on Thursday, as sloppy puck play and loose defense had them cornered early. But it's also true that they'll probably have to go over Florida if they want to exorcise their playoff demons and give New York its first title in over 30 years. And to do that, they have to find a way to close that gap.

This search is not yet complete.

“It seemed like we didn’t have the momentum to beat this team,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “That’s up to us. We have to be better.”

Rematch: Rangers measure 5v5 progress compared to defending champions

The wins came easy in the first two weeks of the season, but this was a reality check.

The Panthers (5-3-1) scored two goals with 2:42 to play early, with both goals coming on New York turnovers, and the Rangers never quite found their footing from there.

“I just think the execution and our decision making wasn’t great,” Mika Zibanejad said. “And when that happens, you're disorganized and then they come at you. You kind of go forward and then they come the other way. I can't say, 'Oh, that's our responsibility.' System,” or: “It’s a structural thing that comes from the middle.” I would say that some of the fluctuations we had today are becoming even more disorganized. They feed on it, and that’s on us.”

It was a stark contrast to the first six games, in which the Rangers scored four or more goals each. They had shown significant improvement in their five-on-five play – an area in which the Panthers dominated in the conference finals – and entered Thursday leading the league in several offensive categories, but much of that damage was done against inferior opponents .

There were no goals against the strong Cats, even if it wasn't due to a lack of chances. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Blueshirts were credited with 12 of the most dangerous plays, eight of them in a fast-paced, wide-open first third. But aside from a nice finish from Alexis Lafrenière, Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was up to the task with 24 saves to secure his 400th career win.

Igor Shesterkin was able to almost match his Russian compatriot, but the defense in front of him made far too many mistakes and the Rangers dwindled as the game went on.

It seems like they still have a lot of work to do.

“I don’t think it’s a wishful thing,” Zibanejad said. “I don’t think anyone would be here if we didn’t want it enough, but I think they were sharper.”

Faulty defense

Even without No. 1 center Aleksander Barkov, who is out with a lower-body injury, the Panthers were relentless.

They hit the Rangers with a direct goal after just 44 seconds, with the defense losing sight of Anton Lundell, allowing an uncontested tap-in finish. The collapse began at the other end of the ice, where a Lafrenière turnover led to a Florida odd-man rush.

That lead was doubled less than two minutes later after Reilly Smith released a bouncing puck at the top of the right circle. In the end, Carter Verhaeghe came out on top, beating Shesterkin on the glove side in what was considered one of the lower-danger chances at a peak.

“We don’t want to play like that,” said Kreider. “We give up too much and make it too difficult for our goalkeeper.”

The Rangers pushed back from there, with Lafrenière scoring at the end of a strong rotation from his line that included Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck. They continued to hum until Adam Fox won a board battle and played a heads-up pass to a charging Lafrenière, who switched forehand to backhand for his fourth goal of the young season.

There were a few more close calls after that, including a breakaway from Jonny Brodzinski and a couple of close calls from Filip Chytil, but Bobrovsky stopped them all.

A quiet exit

By the time they got to the second period, the Panthers had regained their momentum.

They held the Rangers without a shot for the first 5:08 minutes and eventually extended their lead to 3-1 when Sam Bennett fired a slap shot off Niko Mikkola at 6:59.

The Cats spent the remainder of the period reminding the Blueshirts why they had won the Cup, as their stifling defensive play limited the home team to just five shots in the middle 20 minutes.

Laviolette looked for a spark by assembling a lineup that had been largely untouched through the first six games, but to no avail. The Rangers fired ten shots in the final period but only had one HD chance. They also went 0-4 on a night when the power play was never much of a threat.

The longer they played, the more separated Florida became.

“Tonight everything goes into a bag where it wasn’t good enough,” Laviolette said. “You can talk about the five-on-five game. You can talk about the defense, the offense, the power play and the penalty kill. I wouldn’t say we’ve shown what we are so far this season.” But that’s exactly what happened tonight. If you're honest, none of it was really good enough. Yes, we created a few good chances in the first third, but in general it was just the game, the competition – everything wasn't good enough to be successful.”

Mika Zibanejad cites enforced disappearances

There was plenty of blame to be cast, but Zibanejad's line with Kreider and Smith was among the main culprits.

That trio was outscored 5-1 and was on ice for two of Florida's three goals. Zibanejad appeared hesitant and wasn't even credited with a shot attempt in 19:20 minutes of ice time, despite avoiding the duel with Barkov that plagued him in the conference finals.

The third line of Chytil, Will Cuylle and Kaapo Kakko wasn't much better, aside from one shift where Chytil had two of his three shots on goal. Overall, they were outnumbered 13-5 – a far cry from the decisive performance they had shown in the first six games. And the final defensive pairing of Ryan Lindgren and Victor Mancini had a particularly difficult performance: The Rangers were 8-1 on the ice and Lindgren finished the game with a team-worst three giveaways.

The only line that could get anything going was Panarin, Trocheck and Lafrenière, who had a 10-5 advantage in scoring chances, with five of them considered dangerous. But they also gave the puck away at inopportune moments, most notably Lundell's goal.

The Rangers were accused of a total of 17 turnovers, including 11 giveaways, but the actual number appeared to be even higher. The creative, high-risk passes that led to an offensive explosion against the likes of Pittsburgh and Montreal didn't have the same impact against the champions.

“We haven't talked about how we're going to take risks if we score five or six points, have we?” Zibanejad said. “You might not notice the percentages when it works. When it doesn't work, things look really bad. Maybe we didn't have it tonight, of course, but we just have to be able to understand that a little bit faster and just play an easier game and let the game come to us a little bit more than we did.

Vincent Z. Mercogliano is the New York Rangers beat reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Read more about his work at lohud.com/sports/rangers/ and follow him on Twitter @vzmercogliano.

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