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Panthers cruise past Rangers

Nov 30, 2008 - 9:57 PM By Larry Fleisher PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

NEW YORK (Ticker) -- On Friday, the Florida Panthers almost stole a victory from the New York Rangers. Two days later, they left little doubt about the outcome.

Stephen Weiss and Gregory Campbell scored 12 seconds apart in the second period as the Panthers rolled to a 4-0 victory over the Rangers on Sunday afternoon.

Ville Peltonen had the other second-period goal for Florida, which won for the second time in last seven games (2-3-2) and has played three straight one-goal contests.

Craig Anderson made 37 saves for his second shutout of the season and sixth career. Anderson stopped 13 shots in the first, seven in the second and 17 more in the third.

"A shutout by us is a great job by everybody," said Anderson, whose last two victories have been blankings. "They had good opportunities to score there, but our penalty kill did a great job on draws taking away a lot of clock time, blocking shots. A terrific job by everybody."

"Last week, we played three good games, but they weren't 60 minute games," Florida left wing David Booth said. "We had a couple of lapses and I think we didn't have any lapses tonight. Our goalie played good, our defense (played well) and we got a lot of production up front."

Rookie Michael Frolik also tallied while former Ranger Radek Dvorak collected two assists as Florida equaled its most decisive margin of victory.

The Panthers also came into the contest with the third-fewest goals in the Eastern Conference and despite missing Richard Zednik, Cory Stillman and Nathan Horton due to injuries, scored four goals for the fifth time this season.

"That was nice," Florida coach Peter DeBoer said. "We got contributions from deep in our lineup. Campbell, Peltonen and Dvorak, I thought were excellent again. It was a real gutsy effort."

Most of New York's shots against Anderson were not quality chances, and his best save came early in the third when he dove to deny Rangers captain Chris Drury.

While the Panthers posted their most decisive road win of the season, the Rangers failed to win their fourth in a row as Henrik Lundqvist was pulled after allowing Florida's third tally.

Lundqvist made 23 saves and was lifted for the second time in three home games.

"I don't know (what went wrong)," Lundqvist said. "A couple of quick plays and it was 3-0. They worked hard. I felt like they outworked us in the second period and that paid off for them."

One of the Rangers' previous wins was a 4-3 shootout victory Friday in Florida where they blew an early 2-0 lead and let the Panthers get a point when Booth scored with 87 seconds left in regulation.

In this one, the Panthers did not have to worry about playing beyond the third period, as they scored three times in a span 6:18 during the middle session.

"Everything was clicking for us," Anderson said. "We were generating some offense on the power plays. The penalty kill was just clicking with everybody and, 5-on-5, we were just all over them pretty much the entire game."

Florida equaled its most productive period of the season, and it started when Peltonen beat Lundqvist on a breakaway with 11:05 remaining.

The play started after defenseman Michal Rozsival could not get to a loose puck in the slot and blue-liner Marc Staal fell down. That allowed Dvorak to make a nice back-hand pass to Peltonen at the blue line, and the play ended when Peltonen beat Lundqvist to the stick side for his third goal of the season.

Weiss made it 2-0 at 16:01 and did so after appearing to get injured on a penalty kill. It did not affect him, as he came back right away and put a backhander past Lundqvist.

Before Weiss' goal could be announced, Campbell ended Lundqvist's afternoon by tipping in Dvorak's centering pass.

"We're counted on to be solid and responsible on both ends of the ice," Campbell said. "It does feel good when it pays off and you can chip in goals."

Frolik finished it off by backhanding the rebound of Weiss' shot past Stephen Valiquette for his second career goal.

"We just let this game get away from us, simple as that," Rangers coach Tom Renney said. "We're not paid to lose."