Rumors of the dethroning of the King on Broadway are greatly exaggerated.
Henrik Lundqvist made 32 saves for the New York Rangers Thursday night in Toronto in a 2-1 win over the Maple Leafs in the skills competition.
Henrik Lundqvist was spectacular in thrilling OT session – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Lundqvist kept the Rangers alive through regulation with spectacular saves but kept the best effort for the over time when the game turned into a track meet between two very fast teams.
“I tried to keep my focus real simple right now and it’s been paying off the last few weeks,” Lundqvist said. “I’ve worked hard in practice, but the way I’ve competed, I’ve tried to really [simplify] everything, and in the end, that’s what it comes down to: Just stop it. It’s helped me being patient, and that’s what I did well on the breakaways and in the shootout.”
Yes, the Rangers are fast, not the lumbering club of years past.
The extra session featured breakaways by both teams and Lundqvist and his opposite in the Leafs net, Frederick Andersen, stopped each to keep the game going.
Auston Matthews and Leo Komarov had clear breaks in the extra session for Toronto.
“It was a fun game, pretty challenging game,” Lundqvist said. “They’re a pretty tricky team with a lot of skill up front; we knew that going into this game. But in the end, going into overtime, I do have a short memory, but I definitely remember losing in a shootout (on Tuesday) against [the Montreal Canadiens 3-2] at home. I didn’t want to come up short here twice in two days, so it felt really important to come up with a win.”
With the Leafs leading 1-0, J.T. Miller tied the game midway through the third period.
Connor Brown scored in the opening frame to stake the Leafs to an early 1-0 lead.
It was not for lack of shots that the Leafs lost. It was more about all the iron they pinged in the extra session.
“I mean, we hit the bar in overtime, it’s not like we’re not trying to win, and we’re trying to win the shootout too,” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said. “Today would have been a good one to win for [Frederik Andersen]. Freddie had done everything for us, it would have been nice if we’d scored some goals for him.”
J.T. Miller scored tying goal in third period – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Mats Zuccarello and Mika Zibanejad scored in the skills portion of the game to get the Rangers the win.
“The key is not to try to do too much as a goalie. I knew with the way the game was played, we had enough chances to score and win the game,” Lundqvist said. “For me, it was about keeping the score at 1-0 just to give us a chance, and you just hope that sooner or later it’s going to pay off all the chances we created. I felt like we had more big chances, so just not trying to do too much was the key. I felt really good when it finally paid off in the third.”
WATCH: All Rangers vs. Maple Leafs highlights
Andersen made 37 saves in the loss.
“I think pretty much everyone in hockey wanted to see us keep going,” Andersen  said. “It was a good overtime but we haven’t had much success there (in shootouts).”
Andersen said after the game, he enjoyed the match up with Lundqvist.
“It’s a fun goalie battle; we have big for respect for each other. It’s fun to play in those kinds of games, but obviously you’d rather be on the winning side,” Andersen said.
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