Don’t look now, but the Rangers may be heating up.
Maybe there were asterisks next to the club’s wins over the Pacific Division-leading Golden Knights and the reigning champions in the Avalanche, who were both missing key players when the Rangers beat them both in their buildings last week. It’s also easy to point out the Rangers still gave the Devils a point when they beat the No. 2 team in the NHL in overtime this week.
Thursday night’s 3-1 win over the surging Maple Leafs at the Garden, however, came with no disclaimer.
Toronto entered the game on a three-game win streak and had won nine of its past 10 contests for a third-place ranking in the NHL. All of the Leafs’ big guns were in their lineup. It was a high-spirited matchup and the Rangers earned each of the two points fair and square.
No bullet points. No speculation. Just a decisive win from start to finish with one of their most complete performances of the season.
There was a lot to like about the win. The second power-play unit, which was graced with a whole 59 seconds of ice time with the man-advantage, opened up the scoring with a goal from Filip Chytil. Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin, who were kept together after uniting in the Monday’s against the Devils, showed real signs of promise. Jimmy Vesey scored the game-winner and the insurance tally in the form of an empty-netter, while goalie Igor Shesterkin stopped 22 of the 23 shots he faced.
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As a team, the penalty kill was stellar. It fought off all three of the Maple Leafs’ power plays, which gave the unit an 11-for-13 record over this five-game winning streak, while generating some offense in the process. The Rangers also prevented Toronto’s Mitchell Marner from extending his 23-game point streak and Auston Matthews from building on his eight-game tear, for that matter.
The Rangers even won their first game while wearing the Reverse Retro Liberty jerseys after previously going 0-4 in them.
Vesey continues to earn every penny of the veteran minimum $750,000 contract he signed after impressing during his professional tryout at the start of this season. With the game tied at 1-1 in the second period, the 29-year-old forward made an aggressive move to the net and buried the puck past Toronto goalie Matt Murray to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead at 15:33.
The Rangers and Maple Leafs were tied 1-1 and neck-and-neck after the opening 20 minutes, down to an equal amount of shots on goal at nine each.
In their first and only power-play opportunity of the night, the second unit of Jacob Trouba, Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko, Vitali Kravtsov and Chytil took the ice with 59 seconds left with the man-advantage, which hasn’t happened many times — if at all — this season. Chytil sniped one just under the bar for his first power-play goal since Jan. 2, 2020 to put the Rangers on the board.
Michael Bunting answered for Toronto later in the period, cleaning up a rebound to knot the game at one-all at 14:06. The goal also extended the Maple Leafs forward’s point streak to 10 games.
