Panarin lifts Rangers past Penguins in OT

NEW YORK – 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.

Panarin scored a power-play goal 4:46 into overtime and the new york Rangers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 Sunday night to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

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.

The Rangers are the first team in nHL playoff history to record three consecutive comeback wins in elimination games within the same series.

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.