NEW YORK — The Rangers weren’t blown out of the building, like they were in Buffalo a week ago. They didn’t luck into a win despite being badly outplayed, as they did in Pittsburgh. And they didn’t capitalize on their few chances and rely on Igor Shesterkin, as they did on Long Island.
Their game on Friday against the Leafs at Madison Square Garden was a minor achievement: The Rangers’ best game by far since the 4 Nations break. And the Leafs looked like a team that perhaps enjoyed its two nights in New York City a bit too much.
But all that matters is the final result and the Rangers didn’t get the one they wanted. A 3-2 loss despite a 78-39 shot attempts edge leaves the Rangers still sitting four points out of a wild-card spot in the East and sitting with a bad taste in their mouths after controlling long stretches of Friday’s game, only to leave empty-handed.
“That one hurts a bit,” said Will Cuylle, who scored a pretty short-handed goal off a feed from Mika Zibanejad to tie the game 2-2 at 3:47 of the third. “We need all the points we can get right now. Every loss hurts but this one’s tough.”
A beauty shorthanded by Will Cuylle 🔥 pic.twitter.com/t6xknGl08u
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) March 1, 2025
The Leafs winner came off a puck touch by Shesterkin behind the net that Mitch Marner blocked. Zac Jones and Braden Schneider were also back there but neither came away with the loose puck. Instead it was Auston Matthews, who fed Matthew Knies for a tap-in at 6:21. The Leafs barely crossed the Rangers blue line after that, content to weather the storm, and that plan worked.
A few takeaways from a disheartening loss:
The D hangs in without Fox, but not the power play
The first of what will be several games without Adam Fox looked good enough in the defensive zone despite the breakdown on the Toronto winner. The makeshift pairs — K’Andre Miller stayed with Will Borgen, Ryan Lindgren paired with Urho Vaakanainen and Jones got back in the lineup for the first time in three weeks — were capable, even if the Rangers struggled at times in the first two periods to contain the Matthews line.
“Overall I thought it was really strong,” Peter Laviolette said of his team’s five-on-five play.
As to the new-look power play, whose top unit featured five forwards … Well let’s just say it’s a work in progress. Zibanejad was at the point in Fox’s spot and the group’s puck movement and positioning got smoother by the third and final power play of the night with 10:35 to go, but it’s clear that was where Fox was most missed.
The second unit, which featured K’Andre Miller and Jones, actually had the better looks over the course of the night. The first crack at the five-forward group, midway through the second period, was awful and ended when a botched change produced a too-many-men penalty.
Jones is the most likely candidate to step up to the top unit, but that’s still a big drop off from Fox. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Laviolette stick with the five-forward group a few more games.
Cuylle fills Kreider’s shoes with a shorty
Cuylle doesn’t have the same speed as Chris Kreider but 50 looked an awful lot like 20 in the third period when Cuylle sped up the ice to get Zibanejad’s pass and then beat Anthony Stolarz with a nifty backhand in tight. The Zibanejad-Kreider short-handed connection has been legendary the last four years but, with Kreider missing a third straight game due to an upper-body injury, Cuylle got more short-handed work and it paid off.
Cuylle’s second short-handed goal of the season gave the Rangers three players with at least two shorties, the first time that’s happened since 2020-21. Kreider (three) and Reilly Smith (two) each have more than one.
“I kind of disrupted the play and I saw (Zibanejad) skating up so I just tried to jump up there,” Cuylle said. “You don’t get those opportunities too much so you want to score on them.”
Cuylle also looked good on the left side with J.T. Miller and Zibanejad, the spot you’d normally see Kreider in. It’s highly, highly unlikely Kreider gets moved before the March 7 trade deadline but Cuylle is positioning himself as a possible Kreider replacement should the Rangers make more moves this summer.
No moral victories here
The 17 shots on goal by the Leafs tied a season low allowed by the Rangers. The 39 attempts was a season low allowed by the Rangers. They’re not used to containing teams like this in a season in which they allow they rank 31st in expected goals against at five-on-five and 32nd at four-on-five (data courtesy Clear Sight Hockey). This is a poor defensive team and the Rangers were missing their biggest difference-maker in Fox, yet they had the puck a lot and fended off the Leafs’ high-end guys.
Toronto’s apathy certainly helped but this was an effort to build upon. Too bad it was game 59, not game 29 or 39. The one aspect of Friday’s game that did resemble many others this season was the start — Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s power-play goal 1:47 in marked the 22nd time this season the Rangers allowed a goal in the game’s first five minutes. They did it again in the second, allowing William Nylander’s goal just 51 seconds into the middle period.
“It’s nice we played better,” Lindgren said, “but we didn’t get the points. That’s what matters right now.”
(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
