Toronto Maple Leafs easily beat New York Rangers 4-2

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Toronto Maple Leafs easily beat New York Rangers 4-2. Here is the game summary and highlights.

GAME SUMMARY         |           EVENT SUMMARY        |           FACEOFF SUMMARY

ON THE SCORESHEET

William Nylander got the Maple Leafs on the board with his ninth goal of the season at 4:49 of the first period. Nylander has points (3-4-7) in seven of his last nine games.

James van Riemsdyk gave Toronto a 2-0 lead on the power play at 17:28 of the first period. He has goals (2) in consecutive games and leads the Maple Leafs with nine points (2 goals, 7 assists) in the month of January.

Connor Brown scored the third goal of the night for the Maple Leafs at 14:27 of the second period. Brown has goals (4) in four of his last five games and has six points (4-2-6) in that span.

Connor Carrick gave the Maple Leafs a 4-1 lead with a power play goal at 13:20 of the third period. Carrick has three points (1-2-3) over his last five games.

Nazem Kadri had the primary assist on Nylander’s first period goal. Kadri now has points (4-1-5) in four consecutive games.

Matt Hunwick also registered an assist on Nylander’s first period goal. Hunwick is now three points from reaching the 100 career NHL point milestone.

Mitch Marner recorded the primary assist on van Riemsdyk’s power play goal in the first period and added a secondary assist on Carrick’s power play goal in the third period. Marner has five assists over his last two games. He leads the Maple Leafs in assists (24) and multi-point games (11).

Tyler Bozak had the secondary assist on van Riemsdyk’s first period goal and later had the primary assist on Carrick’s third period goal. Bozak has seven points (3-4-7) in seven games since returning to the lineup from injury on Dec. 28.

Auston Matthews picked up an assist on Brown’s second period goal. Matthews has registered a point in nine of his last 10 games and leads the Maple Leafs with 36 points (21-15-36) this season.

Jake Gardiner had the secondary assist on Brown’s second period goal. Gardiner leads Maple Leafs defencemen in points (6-16-22) this season.

Frederik Andersen stopped 34 New York shots in tonight’s game to earn the win. Toronto is 10-0-1 when Andersen makes 30-39 saves.

SHOTS FIRED

The Maple Leafs were outshot by the Rangers by a 36-27 margin in all situations and by a 28-19 margin at 5-on-5.

New York had a 67-51 edge in shot attempts in all situations and 45-35 at 5-on-5.

Tyler Bozak and William Nylander each registered five shots on goal.

Nazem Kadri led the Maple Leafs with seven shot attempts.

ROAD SCHOLARS

The Maple Leafs are 9-6-6 on the road this season and 7-2-1 in the first leg of back-to-backs.

Toronto’s all-time record is 283-220-95-8 in 606 games against the Rangers and 117-127-56-5 in games played in New York.

Toronto is 13-7-3 against the Eastern Conference this season and 5-3-2 against the Metropolitan Division.

The Maple Leafs wrap up their back-to-back tomorrow (Jan. 14) in Ottawa against the Senators.

MAPLE LEAFS LEADERS

OF NOTE…

The Maple Leafs were 2-for-4 on the power play in tonight’s game. Toronto has scored two power play goals in four consecutive games.

After scoring twice in the opening period, the Maple Leafs have score multiple first period goals in four consecutive games.

The Maple Leafs have scored a league-high 48 goals in the first period this season.

Toronto is 16-4-5 when scoring first this season.

The Maple Leafs are now 13-1-5 when leading after one period and 15-1-6 when leading after two periods.

Toronto has a 13-4-3 record when outshot by their opponents.

Maple Leafs rookies combined for five points (2 goals, 3 assists) in tonight’s game. Toronto’s rookies had combined for 152 points (57 goals, 95 assists) in the Maple Leafs’ previous 39 games.

Toronto’s line of Frederik Gauthier, Matt Martin and Nikita Soshnikov started 20 percent of their even-strength faceoffs in the offensive zone, which was the lowest mark among all skaters in tonight’s game.

Tyler Bozak won 67 percent of his defensive zone draws in tonight’s game (4 won, 2 lost) and won 89 percent (8 won, 1 lost) of his faceoffs when matched up against New York centre Derek Stepan.

Auston Matthews was 9-for-14 (64%) in the faceoff circle in tonight’s game and won 86 percent of his faceoffs in the offensive zone.

UPCOMING GAMES:

Saturday, Jan. 14 at Ottawa Senators, 7:00 p.m. (Hockey Night in Canada, FAN 590)

Tuesday, Jan. 17 vs. Buffalo Sabres, 7:30 p.m. (Sportsnet Ontario, TSN 1050)

Thursday, Jan. 19 vs. New York Rangers, 7:30 p.m. (TSN 4, FAN 590)

Saturday, Jan. 21 vs. Ottawa Senators, 7:00 p.m. (Hockey Night in Canada, TSN 1050)

Monday, Jan. 23 vs. Calgary Flames, 7:30 p.m. (TSN 4, FAN 590)

POSTGAME QUOTES:

HEAD COACH MIKE BABCOCK

On tonight’s game:

I thought we were good. Obviously we took way too many penalties and we really had to rely on our penalty kill so it threw some of the rhythm off our bench. I thought we had all four lines going tonight, our power play was good, our penalty kill was real good and it was good to see [Andersen] back. It’s so important to have good goaltending and we got that tonight.

On the power play’s success:

Obviously things are going and sometimes it goes in and sometimes it doesn’t. We think we’ve got a pretty good scheme and pretty good players and they’re making good plays. We’ve just got to keep working hard at it and if you work hard good things will happen.

On Nylander’s play tonight:

I thought Willy was real good. He was on the puck, he skated. The more tenacious he is and the more he works to get it, he’s going to have it more. That’s one of the things as a skilled player – sometimes in the leagues you’ve been in, you don’t have to work as hard to get it. In this league they don’t give it to you so you’ve got to compete hard to get it.

FREDERIK ANDERSEN (34 SAVES, WIN)

On tonight’s penalty kill:

Yeah, the penalty kill and special teams was really a momentum generator for both teams and I think we did a good job of not letting them come back too much. They got the goal on the scramble but I think we battled hard and did our jobs – the four players who were up top there and I did my part. We battled through them. That kind of gave us a bit of momentum I think.

On the puck retrieval in the defensive zone:

I think it could have went a little bit better today but I think we got better as the game went on. That’s one thing we’ve got to clean up a little bit but otherwise it was okay.

CONNOR BROWN (GAME-WINNING GOAL, 16:38 TOI)

On his goal:

I just threw it at the net and [Matthews] did a good job of creating traffic there and it kind of went off a skate. I was just trying to create a rebound.

On Matthews driving the net on his goal:

I think a lot of people were worried about him on the ice so it opens up some room.

On the team’s play in the third period:

It was good. I think we could still be better but we kept the pedal down and tried to go get the next one and that’s what we did. The biggest thing is you’ve got to continue to make plays, especially in our own end to break out and don’t just throw the puck back to them. We did a good job of that tonight.

On earning a win off the bye week:

That’s huge. It’s nice that they had the exact same break as us – advantage either way. It was nice, we’re all rested and you get a couple days off and you get excited about coming to the rink. We were ready to go today.

MORGAN RIELLY (2 BLOCKED SHOTS, 23:41 TOI)

On matching up against the Rangers:

They’re a big group. That being said, they skate well, they’ve got lots of speed, they’ve got some guys who are up there with the fastest guys in the league. I think we did a good job tonight of containing them, both with their size and their speed.

On the play in the third period:

I think it was good. I don’t think we got away from our game plan that took us there. I think we stuck to what we were doing. That’s obviously an improvement that we want to focus on here down the stretch. To go into the third with a lead and to win the game is a nice feeling.