New York Rangers vs Toronto Maple Leafs: Blueshirts overmatched in 6-3 loss

All of the flaws of the New York Rangers were exposed and their goalie had a bad game. The result was a one-sided 6-3 loss to the Maple Leafs.

It’s hard to believe that this was a tie game going into the third period. The Rangers had counter punched every time the Maple Leafs took the lead, but a bad third period was their downfall.  Alexandar Georgiev was also not at his best and gave up several goals that could be called soft. It was not a good night.

The only positives that came out of this game was that two Rangers ended lengthy goal droughts and the team rebounded from three deficits to tie.  The negative was the clearly superior talent that the Maple Leafs possess and how the Rangers just folded when they faced pressure.

It was easy to underestimate the Maple Leafs since they came into this game only two points better than the Blueshirts, but they are now 9-4 under new coach Sheldon Keefe and it sure looks like the two teams are headed in the opposite directions.

The game

The first period got off to a bad start.   Two Leafs left unguarded in the slot….two goals.   The two Leafs goals sandwiched a shot by Zibanejad that hit the crossbar.  It looked like another tough night at MSG when the puck luck changed in the Rangers’ favor.

Chris Kreider got to a puck on the right boards in the Toronto zone and threw it to Mika ZIbanejad who was in front of the goal.  ZIbanejad passed it to a wide open Brady Skjei in front of the net.  Skjei tried to pull the puck back for a shot, but it trickled off his stick ,totally fooling Frederik Andersen and into the net.

After a Ryan Lindgren post, the Rangers knotted the score when Pavel Buchnevich stopped  a puck behind the Leafs’ net, passed to Panarin who got the puck to Ryan Strome in front of the net who put it home for his first goal in 16 games.

The first period ended with the teams tied 2-2.  The Maple Leafs outshot the Rangers 12-8, but the were closer in shot attempts 19-17.

The second period could have been a disaster, but again it ended in a tie.  The Maple Leafs scored when they were up two men.  Mika Zibanejad was called for interference when he collided with Kasperi Kapanen.   21 seconds later Brendan Smith had a chance to clear the puck, but gave it up and ended up taking a slashing penalty when he took a whack at Mitch Marner.  In the ensuing two man advantage, the Marner scored to give the Maple Leafs the lead again.

It looked like John Tavares had scored, but the puck actually deflected off Brady Skjei and past Georgiev.

Less than three minutes later, the Rangers came right back when Pavel Buchnevich scored from slot.  He got to a rebound of a Marc Staal shot from the blueline, spun around and shot.

The Blueshirts had another opportunity when Tyson Barrie was called for delay of game, but they couldn’t score.  The period ended with the team tied.  The Rangers were outshot 11-4 and the shot attempts were lopsided in favor of Toronto, 30-10.   When Adam Fox took a roughing penalty at the end of the period, the Rangers were fortunate to get out with the tie, but had hopes for the third period.

The third period was a mess.  Toronto scored just 2:10 into the third period when William Nylander beat Georgiev with a stoppable shot from the right faceoff circle.   The crushing blow was just 47 seconds later when they scored again off a Ryan Strome giveaway.   Strome had the puck in the Rangers zone and instead of getting it out, he went back with it and Mitch Marner stole the puck and scored.

David Quinn called a timeout and had a heated discussion with his team, but to no avail.

They had a golden opportunity to get back within a goal on the power play, but Frederik Andersen made a fabulous save off Pavel Buchnevich from the slot.  Game, set, match.

With just under four minutes  left in the game, Georgiev was beaten by a slap shot from Ilya Mikheyev to make it 6-3, but the game was long over by that time.

David Quinn put it best, “Our attention to detail against this team really was poor…just really sloppy, not recognizing situations, turnovers, really playing east-west more so than we have been lately. In my mind one of our poorer performances in a while.”