They were staring down the possibility of losing back-to-back home games to begin this Eastern Conference Final when Barclay Goodrow reminded everyone why he was a priority add a few summers ago. 

Goodrow scored the winning goal with 5:59 remaining in overtime, giving the Blueshirts a much-needed 2-1 victory over the Panthers in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Final on Friday at Madison Square Garden.

That evened the series at 1-1 as they shift to Florida for Game 3, which will be played Sunday at 3 p.m.

“To see him score a goal like that tonight is awesome because his role doesn’t always consist of that,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. 

“It’s not always in the offensive zone. It’s not on the power play, but when you see somebody who does so many other things that helps a team be successful, you’re really happy for a guy like that when he can make a huge impact in the game tonight offensively.”

 There will be no Game 7 for the Boston Bruins.  

Gustav Forsling scored with 1:33 left in the third period, lifting the Florida Panthers to a 2-1 victory in Game 6 on Friday and ending the conference semifinal series. 

Aside from giving up the game’s first goal, Bobrovsky was more than solid between the pipes. He made only 23 saves but turned away several high-percentage chances throughout, including a few stops that turned the momentum in Florida’s favor.

The Panthers move on to the Eastern Conference Finals, facing the New York Rangers, who advanced past the Carolina Hurricanes in six games with a victory on Thursday. Florida won the season series against the Rangers, going 2-0-1 in three games.

Chris Kreider had a third-period hat trick to help the New York Rangers erase a two-goal deficit and beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3 in Game 6 to advance to the Eastern Conference Final.

Kreider single-handedly erased the Hurricanes’ 3-1 lead entering the final period. The go-ahead score came when he got position on Jalen Chatfield at the top of the crease and tipped in Ryan Lindgren’s wraparound attempt to make it 4-3 with at the 15:41 mark.

That finally allowed the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Rangers to put away the Hurricanes, who had won two straight after falling into a 3-0 hole in the best-of-7 series. The Hurricanes appeared on the verge of forcing a Game 7 for a pressure-packed finale, but couldn’t contain Kreider and the Rangers’ surge in the final 14 minutes.