Five pressing Rangers questions ahead of Panthers showdown (2024)

NEW YORK — Instead of going through the stress and emotional swings of a Game 7 on Saturday, New York Rangers players got a second full day of rest coming off a series win against the Carolina Hurricanes. New York won’t play at Madison Square Garden again until Wednesday against the Florida Panthers, who finished off Boston in Friday’s Game 6.

If the Rangers beat Florida, they’ll go to their first Stanley Cup Final since 2014. Stakes are high, and the competition will be formidable. The Panthers are the reigning Eastern Conference champions and have a roster full of standouts, including Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Gustav Forsling and Sergei Bobrovsky.

As Game 1 nears, let’s go over five big questions for coach Peter Laviolette’s team.

Which goalie has the edge?

New York had a huge goaltending advantage against Carolina in the second round. The Hurricanes got an .878 save percentage from Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov, while Igor Shesterkin had a .919 for the Rangers. With two games going to overtime, the series was arguably decided by Shesterkin’s ability to make timely saves and the opposing goalies’ occasional inability to do so.

At this point, the Rangers know what to expect from Shesterkin. He’s one of the league’s best goalies and has consistently raised his game in the postseason. He has a .927 career save percentage in the playoffs and made 33 saves in New York’s closeout Game 6, including a stop on Andrei Svechnikov to keep the Rangers ahead with Carolina’s net empty.

“This season, this postseason he’s been amazing,” Mika Zibanejad said.

Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, a two-time Vezina Trophy winner, arguably had a better regular season than Shesterkin. He led the league in shutouts and is once again a Vezina finalist. But his playoff track record is spotty. He has a .902 save percentage so far this Panthers run — down from his .915 mark in the regular season — and has a .905 in his playoff career. Will he play well enough to cut into the goaltending advantage the Rangers carried last series? And, if Bobrovsky is on his game, can the Rangers’ skaters outmatch the Panthers?

Who is the No. 12 forward?

The Rangers all of a sudden are nearing a full roster of available players. Blake Wheeler has shed his non-contact jersey at practice and appears close to ready for game action. Filip Chytil played in Game 3 against Carolina, only to miss Game 4 with an illness and then get ruled day-to-day with soreness before Game 5. Jonny Brodzinski appeared in two games during the Carolina series, including the clincher, and Matt Rempe played all three home games against the Hurricanes.

Wheeler certainly brings the longest track record to the table. He has played 1,172 NHL games and was skating on the top line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad before his injury. A return in a conference final playoff series is a big ask, though, especially for a 37-year-old whose production was down even before he got hurt. Still, coaches love experience, so it feels possible (likely?) Wheeler will get in the lineup at some point if medically cleared.

Chytil, who missed more than six months with suspected concussion issues, has perhaps the highest upside of any of Laviolette’s options. He skated at third-line left wing in his surprise Game 3 return and looked solid, playing 12 minutes, 2 seconds. But given his soreness postgame, which the team does not believe to be related to his previous injury, is he ready to play regularly?

Rempe could be an option for Laviolette to set the tone at the start of a potentially physical series with Florida, but the coach clearly has reservations about playing the bruising winger on the road, where the Rangers don’t have last change. He feels more like an early series option. If the Rangers go that route, it will likely mean more ice time for their top players. Rempe has averaged 6:19 of ice time in seven playoff games, and Laviolette double-shifts others in his place, especially late in close games.

Brodzinski played a career-high 57 games this season, and he played two games on the fourth line against the Hurricanes. The Rangers know what they can expect from the career journeyman, but he isn’t the flashiest option.

How will Artemi Panarin look?

The Rangers needed a big Panarin game in Game 6, and he provided one, assisting on two goals. The wing’s final numbers for the series were OK — eight points in six games — and he scored the Game 3 overtime winner, but he also went quiet in games 4 and 5. During that span, he had only two shots on goal and a minus-5 rating. New York might not be able to withstand another stretch with him struggling, even if it’s for only a couple of games.

Can the Rangers’ special teams continue their dominance?

The Rangers had the special teams edge against Carolina, which was a primary reason they won the series. The Hurricanes outscored New York 13-12 at five-on-five, but the Rangers had as many short-handed goals (two) as Carolina did in the power play. The Rangers’ power play, meanwhile, had five goals in the series.

New York’s special teams edge in the second round was particularly impressive given how good Carolina was during the regular season on both the power play (second-best conversion rate in NHL) and the penalty kill (first). The Panthers were top-10 in both categories, so they pose a test, too.

The Rangers’ power play had a three-game goalless drought in the middle of the series, but it broke out with a game-tying Kreider tip in Game 6.

“I thought early on in the series, we were able to crack their code,” Vincent Trocheck said. “They made great adjustments, and then it was just a matter of us taking some time to make our own adjustments.”

Those adjustments included tweaks to help Trocheck in the faceoff circle, as well as an effort to slow the game down. With the Panthers posing another test, the unit will have to make more adjustments as needed. Can it do that successfully and win the ever-important special teams battle?

How will the defensem*n, especially Adam Fox, perform when the series begins?

The Rangers’ group of defensem*n did not have a great series against Carolina. Jacob Trouba struggled at points, and Laviolette split up the K’Andre Miller-Braden Schneider pair going into Game 6. Perhaps most concerningly, Adam Fox looks less than 100 percent. He had a knee-to-knee collision with Nick Jensen in Game 4 of the Washington series, then took a pair of maintenance days going into the Carolina matchup. He had only two assists in the series and played over 23 minutes only twice. For reference, he averaged 23:27 of ice time in the regular season. (Fox averaged 24:30 a game in the Carolina series, but that total was inflated by his 33:36 in a double-overtime Game 2.)

The Eastern Conference final doesn’t start until Wednesday, and that extra time to rest could be beneficial for Fox. The Rangers need him close to his best to maximize their chances against a difficult Panthers club.

(Top photo of Gustav Forsling battling Artemi Panarin: Jasen Vinlove / USA Today)

Peter Baugh is a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in New York. He has previously been published in the Columbia Missourian, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Politico and the Washington Post. A St. Louis native, Peter graduated from the University of Missouri and previously covered the Missouri Tigers and the Colorado Avalanche for The Athletic. Follow Peter on Twitter @Peter_Baugh