In New York, the Rangers won their fifth straight game, 3-1, over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night.
Igor Shesterkin made 22 saves in the Rangers win.
New York shut down Mitchell Marner, who saw his 23-game point streak end in the loss.
“It was cool,” Marner said. “It was a cool accomplishment to have your name with some great legends, hold something special to this team. It wouldn’t be possible without the guys in this room. A lot of love goes out to them. It’s time to refocus here.”
The Rangers improved to 16-10-5.
Filip Chytil scored off the power play in the first period to give New York a 1-0 lead; the goal came at 3:52 of the period.
“Finally, we had a little more time and we could make some plays,” Chytil said. “We won a face-off, I got good help there on the face-off, and we could make good plays in that 50 seconds that we got there. Finally, we scored.”
At 14:00, Toronto’s Michael Bunting tied the game. 1-1.
“He’s going to the net, doing his thing,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said of Bunting. “He’s a streaky scorer and he’s feeling it right now. He’s played well for a good chunk of time so it’s good to see him get rewarded.”
In the middle frame, Jimmy Vesey scored the fist of his two goals on the night.
“They’ve been rolling and it’s definitely a quote-unquote measuring stick game,” Vesey said. “We were feeling good about ourselves too. I think it’s a big win for us knowing how we have to play to win those big games.”
The strike came off a power move down the right side and a high shot off the crossbar for a 2-1 advantage.
“I was trying to see what the defenseman’s first move was going to be,” Vesey said. “I thought he slid a little early so I thought I could get around him. Just used my instincts and lucky enough it went in short-side.”
The score stayed that way until Vesey his his double in the third into an empty net with 73 seconds left in the game.
The Maple Leafs dropped to 19-6-6.
Matt Murray made 17 saves in the Male Leafs loss.
“Everything has gone our way for real long time, and that’s not the reality of the NHL,” Keefe said. “We’ll push past this one here today. We’re right there. Their goalie makes one more save than ours and we don’t make good on our chances on the power play. But there’s nothing wrong with how we played the game today.”
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