MIAMI (AP) — Send the New York Rangers outdoors, and they become unbeatable.
Mika Zibanejad had a hat trick, Artemi Panarin scored twice and the Rangers beat the Florida Panthers 5-1 on Friday night in the Winter Classic — the first outdoor game played in the Sunshine State.
Alexis Lafrenière had three assists and Igor Shesterkin stopped 36 shots for the Rangers, who improved to 6-0-0 in outdoor games.
Sam Reinhart scored for Florida, which was playing outdoors for the first time and lost for the fourth time in its last six contests overall. The Panthers gave up goals to Zibanejad and Panarin 64 seconds apart late in the first period, giving New York a 2-0 lead, and the Rangers kept control the rest of the way.
Zibanejad’s third goal was an empty-netter with 1:28 left. Rangers fans tried throwing hats to no avail; the seats were too far from the ice for any of them to get even close to the playing surface.
The roof was open, as were the huge window panels behind what typically is left field at loanDepot Park — home of Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins. There was some snow falling from the edges of the stadium, there were blasts of fire and after years of planning, there was hockey on a baseball field.
Did it work? Outdoor ice typically doesn’t hold up with temperatures in the 60s, and there were some player complaints that the surface wasn’t conducive to speedy play. But it worked well enough for the Rangers, who were 4-6-3 in their last 13 games coming into Friday.
In Friday’s late games, the Vancouver Canucks hosted the Seattle Kraken, and the Minnesota Wild played the Ducks in Anaheim, Calif.
Elsewhere in the NHL on Friday:
BLUES 4 GOLDEN KNIGHTS 3
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Brayden Schenn scored the game-winning goal at 18:27 of the third period, leading St. Louis to a victory over Vegas.
Oskar Sundquist, Justin Faulk and Alexey Toropchenko also scored for the Blues. Joe Hofer recorded 22 saves.
Pavel Dorofeyev, Mark Stone and Keegan Kolesar scored for the Golden Knights, who are 1-5-2 in their last eight games. Vegas has allowed four or more goals in five of those games.
Carter Hart saved 15 shots for Vegas.
Vegas defenceman Brayden McNabb sat out with an upper-body injury sustained Wednesday against Nashville, snapping his 298 consecutive games played. It was the 10th-longest active streak.
St. Louis scored two goals in 58 seconds of the second period for a 3-1 lead. Faulk scored on a wrist shot from the right circle goal at 5:39 and Sundqvist on a snap shot at 6:37.
Vegas cut it to 3-2 on a goal by Stone and tied it at 3 on Dorofeyev’s goal at 8:29 of the third period.
The Associated Press
