Rangers battle Panthers, embarrassment in Florida

The New York Rangers will be battling illness, injury and humiliation when they visit the Florida Panthers on Saturday.

Star rookie winger Kaapo Kakko has the flu and is questionable for the game against the Panthers. Defenseman Jacob Trouba, who leads all Rangers in ice time, has an upper-body injury (although New York coach David Quinn is optimistic he can play on Saturday).

The biggest issue with the team, however, is their aforementioned humiliation, which stems from a 9-3 loss at the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, which was described by the New York media as one of the worst Rangers games in at least a decade.

"Unacceptable," Rangers winger Chris Kreider told the New York Post. "It's demoralizing.

"But we have another game (the Panthers) coming up in a hurry, and shame on us if we don't learn from it and make up our minds that something like that is never going to happen again."

Thursday was just the eighth time in the Rangers' 93-year history that they had allowed five or more power-play goals, and the first time they had done so since giving up five to Washington in 2003. Tampa Bay went 5-for-8 on its power play.

New York, which had played relatively well in its previous seven games, going 5-1-1, responded in Tampa Bay by getting into fights. Micheal Haley (24 penalty minutes) and Brendan Lemieux (19) spent large chunks of the game in the box, and it's assumed the Rangers will be on edge Saturday.

The Panthers were not embarrassed on Thursday, but they can't be happy with their 4-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets. This was not how the Panthers wanted to start their four-game homestand, and it had to be frustrating that they could not take advantage of Jets backup goalie Laurent Brossoit, who entered Thursday with a 4.12 goals-against average and an .858 save percentage.

As it turned out, Brossoit made 34 saves, center Mark Scheifele had the go-ahead, third-period goal to go with two assists, and Patrik Laine added three assists as the Jets scored the road win.

"We weren't sharp," said Panthers coach Joel Quenneville, who is one victory away from becoming just the second coach in NHL history to win 900 games, joining the now-retired Scotty Bowman (1,244 victories).

As for Saturday's game, the Rangers are expected to start goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who came in off the bench on Thursday after Alexandar Georgiev was pulled. Georgiev had allowed four goals on eight shots. Lundqvist allowed four goals on 19 shots before Georgiev was reinserted into the game.

Saturday will mark Lundqvist's 868th NHL game, tying him with Grant Fuhr for 10th place on the league's all-time list.

It is not known if the Panthers will go with starting goalie Sergei Bobrovsky or backup Sam Montembeault.

Offensively, the Rangers are led by winger Artemi Panarin, who had two assists on Thursday to extend his career-best points streak to 10 games. He is the first Rangers player to post such a streak since Rick Nash went 11 games in the 2014-15 season.

But the Rangers will likely be without top-line center Mika Zibanejad, who has missed eight straight games due to an upper-body injury. Rangers defenseman Marc Staal is out after ankle surgery.

The Panthers are led by center Aleksander Barkov, their captain. Barkov has a seven-game points streak, with six goals and six assists during that span.

Barkov leads a Panthers power play that ranks fifth in the NHL with a 25-percent conversion rate. Over their past eight games, the Panthers are No. 1 in the league at 33 percent (9-for-27), and that has to be frightening to the Rangers given what happened to them on Thursday.

"We know how to execute," Barkov said. "We all battle for the puck."

--Field Level Media