SUNRISE, Fla. — After a season of middling results, why would the Rangers start to make things easy now.
In what could only be considered the most disappointing loss of the season, the Rangers found a way to drop a crucial game to the NHL-worst Panthers, 3-2, Tuesday night at the BB&T Center. Now with two games remaining in the season, the chance to clinch a playoff spot will have to wait.
The loss also dropped the Rangers from seventh to eighth in standings, as the Senators leapfrogged them by virtue of a game in hand.
As the Capitals beat the Jets, 5-3 in Washington, all the Rangers had to do to clinch a playoff spot was get two points. It was a full slate of games with playoff implications in the East, but the Blueshirts were in a position where their playoff destiny laid clearly in their hands. Keep winning, and they would get in.
“We talked about respecting your opponent,” coach John Tortorella said before the game. “Every game is hard in this league. There’s good athletes, there’s proud athletes, so we’re just worried about tonight’s game.”
Now the Rangers (24-18-4) head to Carolina to face the eliminated Hurricanes — who beat the Islanders, 4-3 in a shootout at home — tomorrow before the season wraps up Saturday at home against another team out of contention, the Devils, who beat the Canadiens, 3-2 in Newark.
The Rangers were buried midway through the third, when Brad Richards took a bad tripping penalty that he wasn’t pleased about. On the power play, Marcel Goc redirected a great pass from Tomas Fleischmann, and it went past Henrik Lundqvist for a 2-1 lead. Drew Shore made it 3-1 with a shorthanded empty-netter with 83 seconds remaining.
Derick Brassard made things interesting for the waning seconds by netting one with 32.9 seconds remaining, his net empty and desperation abundant, to make it 3-2. But it was too little, too late.
Just before Shore got his empty-netter, the Rangers had a golden chance on the power play, but their man-advantage continued its sputtering, finishing the game 0-for-3.
The Rangers had just fought back minutes before, getting a hard-working goal from Taylor Pyatt 2:35 in to tie it, 1-1. After defenseman John Moore crashed the net, Pyatt and Mats Zuccarello went to the crease, and Pyatt shoved in his sixth of the season, the second in the past two games extending his point streak to four games.
The Rangers were coming in playing as good as they have all season, notching an 8-2-1 record in their previous 11. They came in to face the NHL-worst Panthers (14-26-6), whom they had beaten 6-1 just five days prior at the Garden.
The second period was the one where the air started to leave the Rangers’ game. On the Panthers’ third shot of the game, 5:04 into the period, Fleishmann somehow found a way to get a goal. It was a long, soft, high wrist shot from Filip Kuba at the blue line that deflected off Fleishmann and through a crowd of bodies in front, bouncing passed Lundqvist for a 1-0 lead.
The Rangers kept pressuring after Kuba’s goal, just as they had in the scoreless first period. Though the opening 20 minutes was a rather tepid affair, the Rangers held the Panthers to just two shots, and peppered Jacob Markstrom with 10.
bcyrgalis@nypost.com