Rangers' four-game winning streak snapped by reigning Stanley Cup champion Panthers

After a blazing start against maybe not the stiffest competition, the Rangers knew they would be facing a tough test Thursday night when the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers visited the Garden.

They definitely didn’t ace the test.

“Everything tonight goes into a bag where it wasn’t good enough,’’ Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said after his team’s 3-1 loss. “You can talk about the five-on-five play. You can talk about the defense, the offense, the power play, the penalty kill. I wouldn’t say that that’s who we’ve shown to be so far this season, but that’s what happened tonight. So if you’re being honest about it, none of it was really good enough.’’

Playing without captain Aleksander Barkov, the Panthers, who eliminated the Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final last spring, stunned the home team by scoring 44 seconds into the game and opening a 2-0 lead before the game was three minutes old. The Rangers had to play catch-up after that, and they never were able to catch up.

“You definitely don’t want to come out starting like that,’’ defenseman Adam Fox said. “Down 2-0 to a team like that early, it’s going to be a tough hole to climb out of. But all game was just pretty sloppy out of us. It’s definitely some things to clean up.’’

Alexis Lafreniere’s goal at 4:44 of the first period got the Rangers — playing for the first time this season in their navy blue third jerseys — within 2-1. But Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky gave them nothing else, making 24 saves, many of them brilliant.

“I thought he made some big saves,’’ Laviolette said. “But we just didn’t generate any [offense] in the third, either. It was just kind of quiet out there . . . But that’s not who we are. It’s not what we should accept. We’re better than that, from start to finish, and we didn’t show it.’’

Goals by Anton Lundell and Carter Verhaeghe in the first period and Sam Bennett in the second held up as Florida (5-3-1) handed the Rangers (5-1-1) their first regulation loss of the season and ended their winning streak at four games.

Lundell found himself all alone just outside the Rangers’ goal crease as three Rangers chased the puck along the right-wing boards and weren’t able to come up with it. Sam Reinhart passed the puck out of the corner to Lundell, who had a simple tap-in for his fifth goal of the season.

Verhaeghe made it 2-0 at 2:42 after Reilly Smith failed to get the puck out along the right-wing boards. Verhaeghe picked it up behind him, drifted to the middle and fired a shot past Igor Shesterkin (26 saves) on the far side. Judging by his reaction, the shot was one Shesterkin seemed to think he should have stopped.

The Rangers had life, though, when Lafreniere drove to the net, caught a perfect feed from Fox in the low slot, pulled the puck past Bobrovsky and tucked a backhander behind the goalie for his fourth goal of the season.

The Rangers picked it up at that point and began to pepper Bobrovsky, who made big saves on Filip Chytil, added a nearly unbelievable one on a rebound by Vincent Trocheck and stuffed Chris Kreider on two attempts from the crease on a power play.

But in the second period, the Panthers took control. They dominated possession, outshot the Rangers 9-5 and went up 3-1 on a goal by Bennett at 6:59. He deflected a shot by Niko Mikkola past Shesterkin for his sixth goal of the season.

Late in the third period, Laviolette shook up his top three lines, moving Artemi Panarin (whose points streak ended at six games) to the Mika Zibanejad-Kreider line, dropping Smith to left wing with Chytil and Kaapo Kakko, and putting Will Cuylle on the left of the Trocheck-Lafreniere line.

Notes & quotes: After the game, the Rangers sent forward Matt Rempe to AHL Hartford. Rempe had played in only two of the first seven games of the season and had little ice time in the games in which he did play . . . D Chad Ruhwedel was placed on waivers, meaning rookie Victor Mancini is sticking around for a while . . . D Zac Jones was a healthy scratch for the third straight game.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.