Rangers’ ‘fluke’ own goal sums up uncharacteristic Game 1 loss to Panthers

Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals was tough for the Rangers.

The Florida Panthers, who were in the Stanley Cup Finals a season ago, came into Madison Square Garden and mauled the Rangers to take a 1-0 series lead.

While the score says the Panthers won 3-0, the game was much closer than that. Florida picked up a goal in the first period on a Matthew Tkachuk snipe, but the score stood that way until the third period.

A disallowed goal shifted the momentum the Rangers’ way and it seemed like they were finally getting chances on goal, and woke up an otherwise dead MSG crowd. But then, Carter Verhaeghe took the puck in the corner of the Rangers’ zone and centered it toward the net where Alexis Lafreniere was skating.

The puck hit Lafreniere’s stick and the 22-year-old accidentally tapped it past Igor Shesterkin for an own goal, which immediately sucked the air out of the arena.

While the Panthers would tack on an empty net goal later in the period, it was the own goal with less than four minutes remaining that put the game out of reach.

“I don’t know if it was from pressing. It was 1-0 game the whole time and then we had the fluke goal to make it 2-0,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said after the game. “I don’t think we gave up a lot because we were pressing I just think we slowly got better as the game went on but I still think there’s gears to go.”

“Trying to get the puck out and saw the goalie come out and he shot to the boards. I just picked up the puck and tried to make a play to the net,” Verhaeghe said of the own goal. “I think [Tkachuk] was going backdoor. I tried to put it on his tape but put it on someone else’s tape. And it went in, luckily.”

“It’s a tough bounce,” Laviolette said of the own goal and Lafreniere. “He was trying to do the right thing. It was a tough bounce.”

Wednesday’s loss puts the Rangers behind in the series, 0-1, for the first time in this postseason.

“I think we can play better. I don’t think that was the best version of ourselves,” Laviolette said. “We’ll look to see what they did, see what we can do better at all phases of the game. There’s more for us to give and more for us to do out there.

“Game 1 didn’t go our way and now we have to focus on Game 2 and make that the priority.”

The Rangers were shut out for the first time since Dec. 9 and the Blueshirts didn’t win the President’s Trophy by being outplayed and making mistakes very often, so if New York wants to get back in this series they’ll have to flush away Game 1.

Luckily for the Rangers, they can get back on the ice quickly to show who they really are when Game 2 takes place Friday back at MSG.