Igor Shesterkin made 24 saves for New York, which is the No. 1 seed from the Metropolitan Division.
Game 2 of the best-of-7 series will be here on Friday.
“They play a pretty smart, simple game,” Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said. “[They] don’t turn many pucks over and do a good job of gaining the zone, getting pucks deep and getting in on the forecheck. I think we got to do the same. I think that’s the kind of game that’s going to be played. … I’m sure we’ll go back and look at it and make some adjustments for next game. … It is one game. Come back and bring a better game in Game 2 and even this thing up.”
Tkachuk gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead at 16:26 of the first period, scoring from just above the left circle after taking a pass from Gustav Forsling on a rush.
“I don’t put any pressure on myself to score and produce offense,” Tkachuk said. “I guess that’s part of my game, a big part of my game, but at the end of the day, it’s not about myself here, so there’s a way bigger goal ahead.”
Tkachuk leads the Panthers with 16 points (five goals, 11 assists) in 12 games this postseason.
“That was a big goal and I mean, it definitely got us going,” Verhaeghe said. “Took a lot of momentum out of their sails. I think any time you’re on the road and you can get the first goal, I think you take the crowd out of it a little bit and kind of … we like playing with the lead and it kind of lets us settle down into our game. ‘Chucky’ was awesome.”
First appeared on www.nhl.com