Leafs it to Stolarz: Toronto goalie shuts down Rangers despite drought breaker

You almost had to laugh by the end of this one. The New York Rangers finally scored a goal after 170 minutes of frustration and still walked away with just a single point on Thursday night. A 2–1 overtime loss in Toronto, to the Maple Leafs, where everything looked right except the one thing that actually counts: finishing, proving this wasn't just a home show.

The first period summed up the whole week. Igor Shesterkin stopped Matthew Knies on a breakaway a minute in and was sharp throughout, but the Blueshirts couldn't buy a goal. Their first power play looked lively — crisp puck movement, good traffic, even a tweak to the setup with Artemi Panarin and Alexis Lafrenière switching sides — but it ended with Stolarz stonewalling Mika Zibanejad and Will Cuylle twice from the slot.

Then the Leafs got a bounce the Rangers haven't seen in days. With twelve seconds left on Cuylle's penalty, Nylander fired a puck that pinballed off Knies and in. 1–0 Leafs. It was their first power-play goal of the year, and a tough one to swallow since Braden Schneider had a chance to clear seconds before. The Rangers outshot Toronto 10–9 in the opening frame, and eight of those came on the man advantage: seven straight scoreless periods and counting. You can feel the frustration building.

The drought deepens

To start the second, Mike Sullivan threw Panarin, Mika, and Cuylle together, trying to spark something.
After the game, Sullivan explained it plainly:

"We just felt like we were at the point where we had to maybe affect a little bit of change," he said. "Sometimes change for the sake of change might help a little bit. Will is obviously a different type of player than Laf. I think he has a willingness to get to the net front. Mika and Bread have the ability to play that give-and-go game and make plays. But once again, it's not easy to score from the outside unless you've got somebody at the net front willing to make the goaltender's life difficult. And so, we thought maybe that switch might help them there with Will's size and his willingness to get to the net front."

The effort was there, as Cuylle had a dangerous chance off a 2-on-1, and Vladislav Gavrikov was buzzing — but Stolarz kept flashing that pad like a goalie possessed. To Toronto's credit, they defended hard under Craig Berube. Their D-zone structure was airtight; every cross-ice feed or net-front pass was swallowed up in the slot. The Rangers were winning races, controlling possession, and executing clean breakouts, but nothing was going in.

Then came Power Play No. 3, which was painful, disconnected, and slow, marred by miscommunications everywhere, and capped by a shorthanded rush the other way. Make it 2 for 26 on the year as the wounds remain. Right after the kill, Igor had to bail them out again with a massive save on Knies.

The best chance of the period came late — a 3-on-1 where Sam Carrick got robbed point-blank, because he didn't elevate the puck, increasing the dryspell to 166 minutes through two periods as the Rangers trailed 1-0.

Pärssinen breaks the curse

Right off the hop, J.T. Miller fanned on a golden look in the slot. Still, you could feel one coming — if only because it had to, right? Finally, mercifully, it did. Juuso Pärssinen, after keeping the cycle alive along the left wall, tipped a Schneider point shot past Stolarz to end a 170-minute, 39-second drought, and it was 1-1.

From there, it was more of the same: bottom-six lines driving play, top guys still snake-bitten, Stolarz refusing to blink. Will Borgen nearly gave the Rangers their first lead of the century, but hit the crest instead of the corner. The Matt Rempe–Carrick–Adam Edström line even had a glorious look late — Edström created a turnover, fed Rempe, Stolarz made the save, and lost his helmet, before making another in the process. If the whistle doesn't blow there, maybe that's the game-winner.

Yet given the Blueshirts scoring fortunes, course, it did, forcing the tilt into overtime. In the extra frame, Mika and Panarin tried to force a play at the blue line, before a turnover, birthed a 2-on-1, and William Nylander pulled it around Adam Fox to feed Auston Matthews for the tap-in winner.

The defeat made it three straight nights of being goalied by three different netminders in — Charlie Lindgren, Stuart Skinner, and now Anthony Stolarz. Under the hood, something is different about this team. They're defending incredibly well, controlling possession, and creating high-danger chances in bunches. They'll find the back of the net soon — and when they do, the floodgates are going to open. The hope is that it starts at the Bell Centre on Saturday against the Montreal Canadiens. It's only Game 6. There are 76 left.