The building was full of possibility during the second intermission, the Rangers having played the Panthers to a well-deserved draw over 40 minutes on home ice.
It’s been a long time since this team was one win away from the Stanley Cup Final, 2015 to be exact.
The score was tied at one, but the Garden crowd buzzed anyway.
After two games’ worth of defending, the Rangers had found something here.
And then the same thing played out over the last 20 minutes as we saw in those two games.
Whether it is because Florida is wearing them down, because the Panthers are digging deeper or for some other reason, the Rangers have now been brutally outplayed in three third periods in a row after Anton Lundell’s goal proved the backbreaker in a 3-2 Panthers victory in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final on Thursday night.
This third period, to be fair, was not nearly as bad as the previous two. The Panthers had an 8-2 margin of high-danger chances at five-on-five, but because of a Rangers power play, the margin over the total 20 minutes was a more-palatable 8-5.
The margin when you combine Games 3-5, though? That would be 23-5 high-danger chances at five-on-five and 24-8 at all strengths in favor of the Panthers during the collective third periods, per Natural Stat Trick.
Expand it to scoring chances and it’s 43-12 at evens, 51-19 overall.
“Five- or seven-minute period in the third where they go in and they get some chances,” Mika Zibanejad said. “We don’t get out of our own zone. They were able to play fast hockey and get on the forecheck but I thought we had some chances to make it 2-1.”
Until Kaapo Kakko drew a power play to halt the pressure at the 6:58 mark, the Panthers were pretty much living in the offensive zone.
They had enough time and space to make a between-the-legs attempt on Igor Shesterkin’s net not once, but twice.
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And when the penalty ended, Florida went right back to work, with Lundell scoring on the rush for a 2-1 lead.
The Rangers managed a bit of a push once they were trailing (and thus, once Florida was no longer quite as aggressive).
But the fact remains the Panthers just seem to have more in the tank once the game gets to the last 20 minutes.
And right now, it’s making a difference in the series.
“I thought we generated some good opportunities in the third,” Jacob Trouba said. “Thought we had a lot of rebound chances that were pretty close to being where they needed to be. Just a little bit off, that’s the difference. They play a good game as well.”