Rangers on verge of elimination after 3-2 loss to Panthers in Game 5

The Rangers lost, 3-2, to the Florida Panthers Thursday night in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals, meaning the Blueshirts are one loss from elimination.

The Panthers, who got goals from Gustav Forsling, Anton Lundell and Sam Bennett in front of a sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden, can close out the best-of-seven series when it shifts to Sunrise, Fla. for Game 6 on Saturday night.

It’s only the second time in the entire playoffs the Rangers have trailed in a series. The other was when they dropped Game 1 to Florida.

Here are the takeaways…

-The Panthers were hurtling around the ice early in the third period, dominating and creating chances until they took a penalty that blunted their momentum. But it was only temporary. They killed the penalty and went on the hunt again and scored with 9:38 remaining off a 3-on-2 rush. Lundell skated down the left side and fired the puck in for a 2-1 Florida lead. It was his first goal of the series. Earlier in the period, Lundell had tried to sneak a shot between his legs past Igor Shesterkin — Eetu Luostarinen also tried the same thing and Shesterkin stopped him, too.

Shesterkin finished with 34 saves.

-With 1:52 left in the third, Bennett scored an empty-net goal after the Rangers had pulled Shesterkin for an extra attacker. The Rangers answered with 49.7 seconds left when they scored at 6-on-5 on a tip-in by Alexis Lafrenière. Lafrenière has goals in three consecutive games in the series and eight goals overall in the playoffs.

-The Rangers took a 1-0 lead early in the second period when they scored their sixth shorthanded goal of the playoffs, which matched their high for a single postseason, set in 1978-79. Chris Kreider started the play with a takeaway that sprung him and Mika Zibanejad on a breakaway. Kreider slipped ahead of Florida’s Sam Reinhart and Zibanejad fed him the puck and Kreider skated in and backhanded the puck past Sergei Bobrovsky — who finished with 25 saves.

Kreider leaped at the glass…