Rick Nash, who hadn’t scored since Dec. 30 at Tampa Bay — due in large part to missing 20 games with a leg injury — beat Florida goaltender Al Montoya in the third period to give the Rangers some needed breathing room and Tanner Glass scored an empty netter with eight seconds left to nail down a 4-2 victory over the Panthers on Monday night.
Defensively for the Rangers, it was night and day compared to the 52-shot barrage allowed in San Jose on Saturday.
After two periods, the Blueshirts had a 2-0 lead on goals by Viktor Stalberg and Mats Zuccarello and the Panthers had just 12 shots on Henrik Lundqvist, who was fortunate at the end of the second when Marc Staal’s weak clearing attempt was picked off and led to a scrum in front.