Rangers top Panthers, move into tie for first entering break

Rangers coach Gerard Gallant let it be known publicly after his team’s last-minute win Sunday over the expansion Seattle Kraken that he was not happy with the Rangers’ performance in that game.

Apparently, the players got the message.

All-Star Chris Kreider scored two power-play goals and Mika Zibanejad, Alexis Lafreniere and Artemi Panarin each had one as the Rangers closed out the pre-All-Star break portion of their season with an impressive 5-2 victory over the league’s No. 1 team, the Florida Panthers, at Madison Square Garden Tuesday. The Rangers are off now until Feb. 15, when they host the Boston Bruins.

"That was perfect,’’ a happy Gallant said afterward. "Yeah, the last two periods were great. And you know, we battled back from a tough first period, [where] they owned the puck pretty much. But I was really happy, obviously, with the way our team responded.’’

Goaltender Igor Shesterkin did his usual excellent job of holding his team in the game until his teammates found their game and started to exert their will on the Panthers (30-10-5) , who were playing the second game in a back-to-back. The Rangers, outshot 15-7 in the first period, had the edge in shots in each of the last two periods, 15-12 in the second and 13-9 in the third. And they outscored Florida 2-1 in the second and 2-0 in the third.

The victory was the Rangers’ 30th of the season (30-13-4), and pulled them into a tie for first place in the Metropolitan Division with the Carolina Panthers at the break. (Both teams have 64 points, though the Hurricanes have played five fewer games than the Rangers have.) For Gallant, the win also provided him with a personal milestone: It was his 300th coaching victory.

"I don't pay attention or read much,’’ Gallant said. "Usually my wife tells me when something like that happens. Tonight the boys gave me the puck.’’

Zibanejad said Gallant didn’t rip into the team at Monday’s practice, after the Seattle disappointment. He didn’t need to.

"I think at this stage, we know,’’ Zibanejad said. "Obviously, it was talked about, but I didn't think there was much to talk about. We knew we had to raise the level of the compete, and our effort, and I thought that's what we did today.’’

Zibanejad scored the game’s first goal on the opening shift, 35 seconds in, when his attempted centering feed to Ryan Reaves on a two-on-one break deflected in off the stick of Florida defenseman Gustav Forsling. Florida, though, tied the game on Anthony Duclair’s 19th goal of the season, a three-on-two wrist shot from the right circle at 10:44 of the first period.

Florida took the lead on a power-play goal by Sam Reinhart, who jammed in the rebound of a shot by Aleksander Barkov off the post, at 2:18. But just 1:09 later, Lafreniere forced Florida goalie Spencer Knight to give the puck away to Kreider in the corner, and when Kreider passed it back to Lafreniere in the slot, the 20-year-old backhanded it in underneath Knight for his 10th goal of the season and his second in two games.

That tied it, 2-2, and Kreider gave the Rangers the lead with his first goal, finishing off a play that started with an outlet pass by Shesterkin to Panarin on right wing, and ended with Strome sending a perfect pass to the back post for Kreider to tap it in at 17:25.

Kreider’s second goal, a tap-in of a Zibanejad feed at 14:39 of the third period, was his 33rd goal of the season, and made it 4-2. Panarin made it 5-2 with an empty netter with 40.2 seconds remaining.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.