Panarin drives Rangers to victory

Artemi Panarin spoiled the party in Carolina, scoring in overtime to give the New York Rangers a 3-2 victory, who took a 3-0 lead in their first-round opener against the Hurricanes.

However, the locals dominated the game 47-25 in terms of shots, but faced an Igor Shesterkin (45 saves) in great form.

And in the overtime period, the goalkeeper saw his star teammate take charge by redirecting Vincent Trocheck’s pass into the opponent’s net at 1:43. It was Panarin’s fourth goal in this series.

Alexis Lafrenière and Chris Kreider were the other scorers for the Rangers. Trocheck had two assists.

Andrei Svechnikov (one goal, one assist) and Jake Guentzel responded for the Hurricanes. In his first start of the spring tournament, Pyotr Kochetkov stopped 22 of the 25 shots directed at him. His last game was on April 14, during the regular season.

The Rangers will have the opportunity to punch their ticket to the next round on Saturday at PNC Arena in Raleigh. They are still unbeaten in seven games since the start of the playoffs.

The Hurricanes opened the scoring midway through the first period when Guentzel, positioned in the slot, redirected Dmitry Orlov’s shot.

Kreider then answered during a numerical penalty, at 8:30 of the second period. He took advantage of a discount from Mika Zibanejad to hit the spot. Zibanejad took the puck from Brent Burns in his own territory to create the advantage.

Alexis Lafrenière gave the New Yorkers the lead by firing a quick wrist shot, on one reception, at 6:24 of the third period.

But Svechnikov brought everyone back to square one with 1:36 left in regulation. The Hurricanes winger took a rebound in the slot to make it 2-2 and force overtime.

Rangers forward Filip Chytil, who had not played since Nov. 2 with a lower-body injury, was back in action.