The Rangers and Panthers battled it out in the 2024 Eastern Conference Final for the right to compete for the Stanley Cup.
Less than two years later, the two teams squared off in a meaningless game in March that resulted in a 3-1 Rangers win Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. Ranked at the very bottom of the conference, the Rangers and Panthers are both in much different places than they were just under 22 months ago.
The difference? Florida actually has something to show for it: two Stanley Cup rings.
In this Sunday matinee, however, the Rangers received stellar goaltending from Igor Shesterkin (27 saves) and broke through on another encouraging play from a rookie.
They took advantage of a hampered Florida team that is projected to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2018-19.
Adam Sykora scored his second goal in as many games, finessing a perfect tip on Adam Fox’s shot just over five minutes into the third period to open the scoring.
The Rangers then doubled their lead on Conor Sheary’s fifth goal of the season before Adam Fox potted an empty-net goal to seal the victory.
Since that conference final meeting, the Rangers have gone 3-2-0 against the Panthers in the regular season, including a dominant 5-1 win in the Winter Classic in Miami earlier this season.
They have one game remaining against them this season in Sunrise on April 13, which is the second-to-last game of the 2025-26 campaign.
Of the 20 Rangers who dressed for Game 6 of the ECF on June 1, 2024, only eight dressed on Sunday.
Igor Shesterkin, Mika Zibanejad, Vincent Trocheck, Adam Fox, Alexis Lafreniere, Braden Schneider, Jonny Brodzinski and Will Cuylle are the only ones who played in that series and suited up for this game.
Backup goalie Jonathan Quick was also on the bench for Game 6, but he has been sidelined with an upper-body injury the last six contests.
While the Panthers had seven players — Sergei Bobrovsky, Aaron Ekblad, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe, Dmitry Kulikov, Eetu Luostarinen and Gustav Forsling — in Sunday’s game from the lineup that ended the Rangers’ season in 2024, the visitors had six others not playing due to injury.
That included Sam Bennett, Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell, Evan Rodrigues and one-time Ranger Niko Mikkola.
