This game was a reminder for the Rangers.
A reminder that the next best team could always be waiting around the corner with the ability to smack them back down to earth, no matter how authoritative they may look at that moment in time.
The Panthers, the defending Stanley Cup champions and the club that knocked them out of the playoffs last season in the conference final, were that team Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, where the visitors handed the Blueshirts their first regulation loss of the season, 3-1.
Just like Florida ripped through the Rangers — after they were flying high with only two postseason losses — in that third-round playoff series, the Panthers tore through them again in their first meeting of the 2024-25 campaign after the Ranges largely demolished each of their previous five opponents.
“I didn’t like the whole night,” head coach Peter Laviolette said bluntly. “I didn’t like any of it. Everything tonight goes into a bag where it wasn’t good enough. You can talk about the five-on-five play, you can talk about the defense, the offense, the power play, the penalty kill.
“I wouldn’t say that that’s who we’ve shown to be so far in the season, but that’s what happened tonight.”
There wasn’t much bumping or bruising in this one, but the Panthers didn’t need their physicality. They beat on the Rangers with their play around the net, disruption of the neutral zone and taking advantage of all the pucks the home team sent to the middle of the ice.
The fact that Sergei Bobrovsky rediscovered his brilliance, after the Florida goalie gave up three to five goals in five of his past six starts, only created more problems for a Rangers team that hasn’t had any trouble scoring goals so far this season.
Finishing with 24 saves on 25 shots, Bobrovsky became the fastest goalie in NHL history to reach 400 wins, surpassing Henrik Lundqvist with the Hall of Fame Rangers goalie looking on from the Garden stands.
Plus, for their first game against the team that ended their last season, the Rangers didn’t particularly have any juice or emotion.
“It was just sloppy out of us,” said Adam Fox, whose slick feed to Alexis Lafreniere in the first period counted as the Rangers’ only goal in the game. “It wasn’t how we played the first six games.”
The Panthers did to the Rangers what the Rangers have been doing to all of their opponents lately: caved them in early.
It took all of 44 seconds for the Panthers to open the scoring when Anton Lundell was left alone and capitalized on a feed from Sam Reinnhart as the Blueshirts overloaded the right side.
Florida repeatedly pounded the Rangers into their zone. The neutral zone belonged to the Panthers. Rangers turnovers only made it worse.
A weak clearing attempt around the boards was kept in by the Panthers before Carter Verhaeghe whipped one in to make it a 2-0 game less than three minutes in.
Sam Bennett’s tip of ex-Ranger Niko Mikkola’s shot less than seven minutes into the second period, however, proved to be a deflating one.
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Not even four power-play opportunities could get the Rangers into an offensive groove. The six-on-four stretch with Shesterkin on the bench couldn’t do it, either. The Rangers’ man advantage totaled five shots on goal, but none got by a sharp Bobrovsky.
The Rangers kept reiterating that this game was not who they are.
But for 60 minutes Thursday night, there was no indication the Rangers have closed the gap with the Panthers team we saw in May.
“I thought that they were better in the first,” Laviolette said. “I thought that they were better in the second. They were better in the third. For me, we’re better than that. We didn’t play that way tonight.”
