PANARIN LIFTS RANGERS PAST PENGUINS
Artemi Panarin is such a gifted passer, he looks to set up his teammates for goals. He can shoot, too, and he came through in a prime situation.
Rangers 4, Penguins 3 (OT)
Panarin scored a powerplay goal 4:46 into overtime and the host New York Rangers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 Sunday night to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“Overall, honestly, they’ve been letting me shoot since the first game,” Panarin said through a translator after he took six shots in Game 7 after totaling 17 in the first six. “Kind of my bad, I haven’t really been making those shots. But maybe I should listen to everyone’s advice and actually get out there and take shots.”
Rangers coach Gerard Gallant had a feeling Panarin was going to rise to the occasion in overtime.
“He’s the guy,” Gallant said, “when it was heading into overtime,
I said to myself, ‘I know he’s going to score if we score. If we get the winning goal, it’s going to be him.”
Mika Zibanejad had a goal and two assists, and Chris Kreider and K’Andre Miller also scored for New York, which got its third straight comeback win after trailing 3-1 in the series. Andrew Copp had two assists and Igor Shesterkin stopped 42
shots.
“It’s a huge win for the team, for the organization,” defenseman Jacob Trouba said. “A gutsy performance, coming back again. That whole ‘No Quit In New York’ thing is pretty true with this group.“
The Rangers went on a power play 2:55 into overtime when Pittsburgh’s Brock McGinn was called for holding.
Late in the advantage, Panarin got the puck on the right side and fired a shot from the right circle past Tristan Jarry.
The Rangers players mobbed Panarin along the boards in the left corner as the sold-out Madison Square Garden crowd went into a frenzy.
The Rangers will play Carolina next.
Flames 3, Stars 2 (OT): Johnny Gaudreau scored at 15:09 of overtime to lift host Calgary to a win over Dallas to advance to the second round of the playoffs. Stars rookie goalie Jake Oettinger made 61 saves.
Notable
Nearly a week later and the swelling around Avalanche goaltender Darcy Kuemper’s right eye has subsided. He knows it could’ve been worse after the stick blade of Nashville center Ryan Johansen slipped through the protective bars on Kuemper’s mask and poked him around the eyelid during Game 3 on May 7. Kuemper will be back in net when the Avalanche begin their second-round series against St. Louis.