Rangers haven’t seen anything like the challenge Stanley Cup-hungry Panthers pose

NHL

By Mollie Walker

Of all the traits that will make the Panthers difficult for the Rangers to tame in this upcoming Eastern Conference Final, their drive just may be the most daunting to overcome.

A team doesn’t make it all the way back to the third round for a second straight year, after falling just three wins short of hoisting the Stanley Cup the previous season, unless it is insatiably fueled by the prospect of finishing what it started.

That’s a kind of challenge the Blueshirts haven’t seen yet.

It’s a factor that can’t be quantified.

The Rangers aren’t just preparing to face a club that finished four points behind them in the NHL standings and is widely regarded as the team to beat in the East, but they’re about to have their hands full with an opponent that’s gotten closer to championship euphoria than most ever do.

“I think we understand the challenges,” Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette said Monday after practice in Tarrytown. “They made it through the ringer last year to get to the finals, one of the final two teams. Even if you’re just looking at this year, there’s a chance that the top four teams in each division will make it. So we shouldn’t be surprised. We know it’s going to be difficult. Even last round, if I’m being honest, I think it was eight out of nine. So eight out of nine made it and then the eight were in the top nine that had made it to this past round.

“It shouldn’t surprise us that they’re a good team or that they’re hungry or that they play well or that they’ve got good goaltending, good specialty teams that almost everybody does at this point. I don’t think it’ll surprise us. I don’t think we have to account for anything other than the fact that they were a really good team this year.

“I understand what they did last year, I think the players understand that, too. But they followed it up this year, they’re a very good team [this year], as well.”

The Rangers have just three regular skaters — Chris Kreider, Barclay Goodrow and Erik Gustafsson — who know what it’s like to compete in the Stanley Cup Final. Laviolette has qualified three separate times, winning it all with the Hurricanes in 2006, while assistants Michael Peca and Phil Housley both know what it’s like to get there and lose.

Otherwise, the conference final is the furthest round a majority of the Rangers players know.

I imagine just reaching the summit of the Stanley Cup Final is something that can’t be explained, just felt. To think what it must be like to get there and then lose, it’s probably a letdown that never quite leaves you until you change the script.

To Laviolette’s point, however, the Panthers didn’t just make it to the final last season. They then followed it up with an even stronger regular-season performance this year. Florida was one of just four teams — along with the Golden Knights, Capitals and Blue Jackets — that the Rangers lost to twice in regulation.

After losing the first two meetings, 4-3 on Dec. 29 and 4-2 on March 4, the Rangers beat the Panthers in one of their most important games of the season with a 4-3 victory in a shootout on March 23.

It came two days after they beat the Bruins and as a result, pushed the Rangers into the No. 1 spot in the Eastern Conference.

There’s no standings to motivate the Rangers now, only Lord Stanley. And we all know that’s what’s been on the Panthers’ minds since they watched it get handed over to Vegas last year.

“There’s no stopping now,” Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad said last June. “There’s no stopping here. A bump in the road, and it’s going to sting. It stings now. But we’ll find a way to come back next year and be stronger because of it.”