NEW YORK — The Florida Panthers made themselves right at home at Madison Square Garden.
The visitors turned Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final against the New York Rangers into the type of contest they wanted to play. Tight-checking, low-event hockey ruled the night, dulling a braying crowd that tried to will the home team to an opening win in a third straight series.
“Coming in here to a hostile environment, playing against the best team in the League, it’s stacked up against you pretty good, in Game 1 especially,” Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “I don’t know, we took that as motivation this morning to come out and play strong.”
The result was a 3-0 victory for the Panthers on Wednesday and a 1-0 lead in the best-of-7 series.
Now the Panthers get to dictate who has to change their approach in Game 2 here on Friday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN+, ESPN, SN, TVAS, CBC). The winner of Game 1 in a best-of-7 round before the Stanley Cup Final holds an all-time series record of 112-53 (.679).
Nobody is more comfortable in uncomfortable situations than Tkachuk.
He’s a big part why the Panthers are 5-1 on the road this postseason and were 8-4 last postseason in a run to the Stanley Cup Final where they lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in five games.
Tkachuk relishes in playing the villain and, in the process, bringing his team into the fight.
It’s who he has been since he arrived in Florida in a trade from the Calgary Flames before last season.
It’s who he was in Game 1.
Tkachuk pasted Rangers forward Vincent Trocheck with the game’s first hit at 1:19 of the first period. Then he scored the game’s first goal, a surprising flick of his wrists from just above the left circle that found its way through traffic and surprised Igor Shesterkin at 16:26 of the first.
“Start with his big hit and then he got a goal; it got us going a bit;” said Florida forward Carter Verhaeghe, who was credited with the second goal when his centering pass bounced off the stick of Rangers forward Alexis Lafrenière and past Shesterkin at 16:12 of the third. “It took a lot of momentum out of their sails. I think any time you are on the road and you can get the first goal, I think you take the crowd out of it a little bit. We like playing with the lead and it lets us settle down into our game.”
