A lackluster first period set the tone for a night that didn't go the way the New York Rangers would have liked.
NEW YORK, NY -- The Toronto Maple Leafs came into Madison Square Garden and put on an incredible offensive performance scoring four goals in the opening period. They dug too deep of a hole for the Rangers to come back from.
LINEUP:
Kreider-Zibanejad-Wheeler
Panarin-Trocheck-Lafreniere
Cuylle-Bonino-Brodzinski
Vesey-Goodrow-Pitlick
Lindgren-Fox
Gustafsson-Trouba
Jones-Schneider
Shesterkin
1ST PERIOD:
The New York Rangers looked like they had a good pop in their step in the opening three minutes of the game, but that was quickly nullified.
Perhaps the two most dangerous players on the Toronto Maple Leafs combined for the games opening goal. William Nylander dangled through three Rangers which led to a mini 2-on-1 with Auston Matthews.
Nylander thread the needle to Matthews, who beat Igor Shesterkin for his 20th goal of the season.
About a minute and fifteen seconds later, the Leafs struck again.
Off of a clean face-off win in the offensive zone, Connor Timmins shot from the blue line beat Igor Shesterkin clean, giving the Leafs a 2-0 lead.
Shesterkin was visibly frustrated.
After the game, Adam Fox talked about these two quick goals that the team allowed in the first period. He said "it could be deflating I think, you know just breakdowns."
Things happened quickly in the opening period. The Rangers answered back 35 seconds later thanks to a fortuitous bounce on a Blake Wheeler shot.
Just like it's been in every Rangers loss this season, when things get bad, they go south quickly.
Toronto scored two goals in a 20 second span toward the end of the opening period to extend their lead to 4-1.
First, Calle Jarnkrok put home a rebound after the Leafs just completely out-battled the Rangers in the net-front area.
Then, 20 seconds later, the Leafs created a 3-on-2 and Matthews found Mitch Marner wide open for a backdoor tap-in.
2ND PERIOD:
After allowing four goals on 11 shots, you could have assumed that Shesterkin would be on the bench at the start of the second period, but Peter Laviolette stuck with his number one guy.
The Second period was much less chaotic.
The Rangers looked a little better, but they were struggling to get on the inside of Toronto's defensemen.
Then all of a sudden the Rangers power play would get them back in the game. Thanks to some patience from Adam Fox, Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad, the deficit was cut to 4-2.
They had found their jam.
After a poor first period, Shesterkin made up for it in the second.
He made a huge save on a Leafs 3-on-2, which then led to a Ranger odd-man rush.
Wheeler came in hot and absolutely sniped Martin Jones, making it a one goal game going into the final 20 minutes.
I asked Fox after the game if there were any positives to take away from tonight's game. Fox mentioned that the second period was encouraging “I thought our 2nd period, we came back and made it a competitive game there and obviously a penalty that they score on a power play, and like I said, it’s tough to dig yourself out of multiple holes.”
There have been a handful of games now this season where the Rangers have had tough first periods, but respond in the second.
Fox added "I think definitely our fight at the end there was encouraging."
Even if the team's star defensemen thought there were some positives, the Rangers head coach did not have the same feeling at the conclusion of tonight's game.
Although, Laviolette did say "I thought that the second period, to describe my opinion, what happened, the second period was a better period for us. We put more pucks at the net, they actually got to the net, they were in the net. We continued to press and I thought that we tightened things up defensively and gave ourselves a chance to win in the third period."
3RD PERIOD:
Despite a strong defensive recovery by Jacob Trouba, the Rangers took a penalty early in the final frame that ended up being costly.
Thanks to a power play goal by Marner, who notched his second of the game on a deflection, Madison Square Garden's buzz was silenced.
This goal gave the Leafs a 5-3 lead.
The Rangers never really showed much life the rest of the way.
Matthews would get his second goal and fourth point of the night late in the third period, sealing the victory for the Maple Leafs.
David Kampf added an empty netter just to put a cherry on top for Toronto and the Leafs skated to a 7-3 victory.
Depending on how you like to look at things, I believe that it's okay to be angry about a loss, but also healthy to try and see some positives.
Laviolette did not feel the same. In the postgame he said "I have a difficult time with the positives after a loss if I’m being honest with you.”
The worst thing about this loss is that the Rangers don't have a chance to get back in the win column until Friday night.
They will go over tonight's mistakes and make the necessary changes like they have all season.