10:05PM: David Quinn spoke after the game on MSG and said:
- On the third, “they are so opportunistic and unfortunately, it’s a good hockey game and the third starts okay and we blow faceoff coverage and it was in the back of the net. The third one was is a turnover inside our blue line, we make a change that we probably shouldn’t have made and don’t react the way we should have in that situation. I love that we battled back, didn’t quit. A lot of good things out of tonight but certainly things that we need to improve on and can learn from.”
- On the Leafs, “they have the talent to take advantage of those types of mistakes. The faceoff goal, we haven’t had anything resembling that all-year long and tonight we make that mistake and it ends up in the back of the net. We kept playing, didn’t give up, competed, had some chances 6 on 5 to tie it but we weren’t able to do it.”
- On the PK, “it gave us a lot of energy and Lindy has done a great job with the PK over the lats few games. Tonight, killing those four minutes, you are holding your breath against that PP and our guys competed and iced pucks when they needed to and made it difficult for them.”
- On the starts to periods, “there were a lot of good things tonight but you can’t make those kind of mistakes. Faceoff, blown coverage which we haven’t had all-year and a bad change and not reacting to a turnover five feet inside our blue line…but we make it 3-2, they make it 4-2 on an odd-man rush. We make it 4-3 and had chances to tie it. A lot of good tonight and we need to keep building on it moving forward.”
- On Georgiev, “I thought he played well. A learning opportunity for him to play against this type of team and he responded well.”
- On Pionk, “he played well tonight, he has stepped up and played well in games of this magnitude. I thought all of our young players did a good job. I thought Lias Andersson had a good night, Chytil had a really good night, Howden had a good night. The kids played well tonight.
9:36PM: First Period:
- Patrick Marleau Assists: Morgan Rielly
Second Period:
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- Neal Pionk Assists: Jimmy Vesey, Brady Skjei
Third Period:
- Andreas Johnsson Assists: Mitchell Marner, John Tavares
- Morgan Rielly Assists: Andreas Johnsson, Frederik Gauthier
- Kevin Hayes Assists: Filip Chytil, Neal Pionk
- Mitchell Marner Assists: John Tavares, Andreas Johnsson
- Chris Kreider Assists: Kevin Hayes, Marc Staal
- Mitchell Marner (ENG)
Stats:
Adam Rotter:
- With some of the struggles of the past few weeks, tonight was a nice step for the Rangers as they worked hard for most of the game and were competitive with the Leafs.
- A game like tonight should be what David Quinn points to as the floor for how the Rangers need to play. You want to see them build on a game where they were competitive, kept battling back and had two really close chances to tie it. You want to see them player better than they did tonight but what we saw tonight should be the minimum from night to night.
- That was some move Filip Chytil made to set up the Hayes goal.
- There is always talk about offer sheets and how this will be the year when teams start sending them out. Well, if the Rangers decide to go that route, Mitch Marner, and of course Auston Matthews, would be an obvious choice. Marner, as is Matthews, is the exact gamebreaker that could change the Rangers quickly. Toronto has the cap space to sign both players/match any offer sheet, so this almost certainly won’t happen, but I’m sure it’s something the Rangers will keep an eye on.