TORONTO — The Rangers have vocalized their disappointment in their play after wins they felt they stole, but have also been tolerant of the losses in which there were positives to take away.
It was the latter case Thursday night at Scotiabank Arena, where the Maple Leafs picked up their fifth straight win with a 2-1 victory to remain one of the hottest teams in the NHL.
The loss snapped the Rangers’ four-game win streak.
“Good game, good hockey game,” head coach Gerard Gallant said. “Pushed at the end, tried to get the tie. We had two or three good chances. Fell a little bit short, but we came in here last time and got outplayed bad. Tonight, it was a pretty even game.”
Toronto was a force on the rush through 60 minutes, skating like a team that had only lost once in its past 10 games. Plus, the Maple Leafs had some added motivation after two points slipped through their fingers the last time they hosted the Rangers, when Igor Shesterkin stole the show with a 40-save performance in the Blueshirts’ overtime win on Oct. 18.
The Rangers know Shesterkin can’t play hero every game, but the 25-year-old netminder still turned aside 28 of the 30 shots he faced Thursday.
After Morgan Rielly buried his second and third goals of the season to give Toronto a 2-0 lead heading into the final frame, Dryden Hunt scored his first goal as a Ranger at 3:30 of the third period to cut the deficit to 2-1. The Rangers played with urgency in the final frame and poured on 13 shots, but couldn’t notch that game-tying tally.
“I think if we played like we did in the third the whole time, we would’ve given ourselves a better chance,” Ryan Strome said after the loss. “But I don’t think we were too bad. … I thought we played hard, we did a lot of good things. I don’t think we gave them too, too much.
“Third period was a lot better and I think we gave ourselves a chance to tie it up and a chance to be in the game. Not the result we wanted, but not a bad effort.”
Despite the loss, the Rangers’ third line of Alexis Lafreniere, Filip Chytil and Julien Gauthier provided a silver lining with aggressive forechecking that created some quality scoring chances. In particular, Gauthier skated like he was on a mission and led the Rangers with five shots on goal in 12:59 of ice time.
Recording 13 high-danger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick, the Rangers certainly had opportunities to score. But they were on the wrong side of the rush game and finished the night with an egregious faceoff win percentage, winning a mere 9 of 46 draws.
It was far from the Rangers’ worst performance of the season, but the Maple Leafs played a crisper and more complete game from start to finish.
“We played the right way,” Gallant said. “If we play this way, we’re going to win a lot of hockey games and that’s what we’ve been saying the last four games. You’ve seen me when we won games and I wasn’t too happy.
“Tonight, I thought we played good enough to win, had a chance to win. Somebody had to lose tonight, both teams were 4-0 in the last four.”