Rangers beat Pens to avoid elimination in Game 5
Rangers 5, Penguins 3: Filip Chytil scored the tiebreaking goal early in the third period and host New York staved off elimination with a victory over Pittsburgh in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series Wednesday night.
Jacob Trouba and Alexis Lafrenière each had a goal and an assist, and Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren also scored for the Rangers. Igor Shesterkin, torched for 10 goals over three periods in the previous two games, had 27 saves.
Jake Guentzel had two goals and Kris Letang also scored for Pittsburgh, which leads the best of seven series 3-2. Evgeni Malkin had two assists and Louis Domingue finished with 29 saves.
Penguins star Sidney Crosby left with about seven minutes remaining in the second period with an apparent injury and didn’t return.
Game 6 is Friday in Pittsburgh, and a potential deciding Game 7 would be Sunday back at Madison Square Garden.
The Rangers got their first power play of the night early in the third period and took advantage as Chytil got a pass from Lafrenière in the right circle, turned around and whipped a shot past Domingue to put the Rangers ahead 4-3 at 2:53.
Pittsburgh pulled Domingue for an extra skater with about 11/2 minutes remaining. He returned briefly 20 seconds later during a stoppage in play and left the ice again. Lindgren sealed the win with an empty-netter with 16 seconds left.
With the Penguins leading 1-0 after 20 minutes, Pittsburgh’s Mike Matheson hit a goalpost 31/2 minutes into the second period. Domingue then made saves a minute later on a shot by Artemi Panarin and a tip try by Lindgren.
Panthers 5, Capitals 3: Carter Verhaeghe set a Florida postseason record with a five-point night, and host Florida escaped a three-goal deficit to beat Washington and take a 3-2 lead in an Eastern Conference first-round series.
Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 shots for Florida, which trailed 3-0 in the second period. Verhaeghe had two goals and three assists for the Panthers.
Patric Hornqvist, Claude Giroux and Sam Reinhart also scored for the Panthers, and Aleksander Barkov had two assists.
T.J. Oshie scored twice for Washington, which also got a goal from Justin Schultz and two assists from Evgeny Kuznetsov. Ilya Samsonov stopped 33 shots.
Verhaeghe broke the Panthers’ playoff scoring record that Ray Sheppard set on a four-point night back on April 22, 1996 – which remains the last, and only, season in which the Panthers won a playoff series.
They can change that Friday, when Game 6 is played in Washington. Game 7, if necessary, would be back at Florida on Sunday.