Vincent Trocheck scored a go-ahead, short-handed goal in the third period, leading the New York Rangers to a 5-3 win over the host Florida Panthers on Monday night in Sunrise.
Trailing 3-1 midway through the second period, New York scored four straight goals.
The Panthers (47-30-4, 98 points), the reigning Stanley Cup champions, got two goals from Sam Reinhart and one from Carter Verhaeghe.
Florida, which has already clinched a playoff berth, also got 20 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky.
New York (38-36-7, 83 points), which was eliminated from playoff contention on Saturday, also got goals from Matt Rempe, Juuso Parssinen, J.T. Miller and Jonny Brodzinski. Jonathan Quick made 27 saves in net.
Both teams have one game left in the regular season.
The Panthers got two key players back from upper-body injuries: forward Sam Bennett and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov.
Bennett, who had missed four games, posted one assist. Kulikov, who missed 12 games, did not have a point.
Florida opened the scoring on Reinhart’s power-play goal with 17:38 left in the first period. Bennett got the primary assist for the pass that set up Reinhart.
Rangers defenseman K’Andre Miller, who was called for the cross-checking penalty that led to Reinhart’s first goal, made up for it a few minutes later.
After the Rangers won a faceoff, Miller fired on the net from beyond the left circle, and Rempe was there to bang home a rebound goal with 11:17 left in the first.
The Panthers took a 2-1 lead on a goal with 15:28 remaining in the second as the puck deflected in off the right leg of Verhaeghe.
Reinhart’s second goal gave Florida a 3-1 lead with 6:06 left in the second. Aleksander Barkov skated just beyond the goal line before passing to Reinhart, who scored from the slot.
The Rangers, though, scored the next four goals. They finished the second period with goals by Parssinen and J.T. Miller.
With fewer than five minutes left in the period, Parssinen raced to the front of the net following a scrum along the boards won by the Rangers, then redirected a pass from Miller.
Less than two minutes later, New York tied the score on a rush as Mika Zibanejad threaded a perfect pass to a charging Miller for a tip-in goal.
Then, with 16:20 left in the third, the Panthers — while on a power play — turned the puck over, and Miller quickly fed Trocheck for a 4-3 lead.
That was Trocheck’s 25th goal of the season and the fifth short-handed tally for the former Panthers star.
Brodzinski’s goal with 3:29 left made it 5-3, putting the game away.
–Field Level Media
