But the Rangers stopped letting the third period be all about their goalie when Panarin took the puck deep, tried to center it from behind the goal line to Jacob Trouba and got lucky that it bounced into the net off Penguins defenseman Mike Matheson's right skate at 8:02.
That gave them a 4-2 lead, putting them back in control.
Vatrano then scored from the right face-off circle 1:47 later to make it 5-2 at 9:49. Again, resiliency.
"It's big," Vatrano said. "Playoff hockey is a different animal."
With Andrew Copp, Chris Kreider and Ryan Strome each scoring earlier in the game, New York got a goal from five of its top six forwards. Panarin and Vatrano each had two assists too.
Defenseman Adam Fox had a big night, with an assist, four shots on goal and seven shot attempts in 23:25 of ice time.
New York got at least one point from nine players and at least one shot from 14, including one from Shesterkin.
"We talk about it, everyone needs to be going every single night," Vatrano said. "It's the playoffs, if you're on the first line or the fourth line, whatever line you're on, whatever [defense] pairing you're on, no matter how many minutes you're playing, we need big minutes. Whatever minutes you're playing, we need the most we can get out of every single guy. That's important. We have the depth on this team to score goals and to shut it down defensively, so it's great to see everyone getting involved."
But this wasn't a perfect performance. Far from it.
The Rangers have plenty of work to do to be better in their defensive zone in Game 3.
The Penguins had 41 shots on goal, including that 9-0 advantage through the first 5:13 of the third. They finished the period with 16 shots.
"We've got to be better defensively, stronger defensively," Gallant said. "When we're quick in the [defensive] zone we're a real good team. I think we're sitting in the slot too much and they're getting too many chances from the point to create stuff. We've got to be quicker."
Pittsburgh's top line of Crosby, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust created problems, as it did in Game 1. Crosby had a goal and an assist, Guentzel scored, and the line combined for 17 shots: six each from Crosby and Guentzel, and five from Rust.
"We contained them a little bit, but they're great players," Gallant said. "That line is a real top line and they're tough to defend. Overall, we did a decent job."
Decent isn't going to cut it for the Rangers to win three more times in this series.
"It's good to get on the board, but it's even better when you play a complete game, and we need to play that a little bit better," Gallant said. "Every time we seem to get some momentum going we give it back to them, and we can't keep doing that."
At least when they do, the Rangers are typically resilient enough to find it again.
