TORONTO – Braden Schneider scored the winner and Igor Shesterkin made 31 saves as the New York Rangers defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-2 on Tuesday night.
Mika Zibanejad, with two, Alexis Lafreniere and Artemi Panarin had the other goals for New York (22-7-1), which owns the best record in the Eastern Conference. Former Leafs defenceman Erik Gustafsson and Blake Wheeler both had three assists.
The red-hot Auston Matthews replied with two for Toronto (16-7-6). William Nylander picked up an assist to stretch his point streak to nine games.
Martin Jones stopped 31 shots for the Leafs, who saw a nine-game point streak (6-0-3) that included a 7-3 victory over the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 12 come to an end.
Shesterkin allowed six goals on 29 shots in that ugly defeat, but was solid on this night.
Jones, meanwhile, suffered his first loss of 2023-24 after going 3-0-0 with a .949 save percentage since being recalled from the minors with Joseph Woll (high ankle sprain) out injured.
Down 2-1 through 40 minutes, Matthews got Toronto back even 1:16 into the third period when he pinged his second goal of the night, 25th of the season, and 11th in the centre’s last seven games upstairs.
But Schneider burst into the offensive zone and fired through the pads on Jones for his second at 8:08 to snap a 22-game drought.
The Toronto goaltender kept his team within one moments later when he denied a chance off the stick of Jimmy Vesey.
Panarin, however, iced it on a power play with 4:52 to go in regulation on another shot that went in off a Leafs player — this time it was William Lagesson — for his 17th.
Zibanejad added his 11th into an empty net.
The Rangers took a 1-0 lead at 6:11 of the second following a tepid opening 20 minutes when Wheeler’s pass bounced around in the slot, deflected off Zibanejad, the stick of Leafs defenceman Jake McCabe and dribbled over the line for the New York centre’s 10th goal of the season.
Toronto tied it 1:21 later when Matthews took a pass from Morgan Rielly and fired his 24th on a bullet upstairs.
But the visitors went back in front on a power play at 9:50 when Lafreniere scored his ninth with a shot that hit Rielly and changed directions on Jones, who made 28 saves in last week’s victory over New York and 38 more in Saturday’s 7-0 home drubbing of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
1,000 REASONS
Leafs captain John Tavares was honoured with an on-ice ceremony alongside his family before the opening faceoff for reaching 1,000 career points last week. The 33-year-old is the 98th player in NHL history to reach the milestone. Leafs legend Darryl Sittler, who had 1,121 career points, presented Tavares with a golden stick for the achievement.
FLU RETURNS
Matthews and Leafs defenceman T.J. Brodie returned to the lineup after missing Saturday’s victory over Pittsburgh with the flu.
UP NEXT
Toronto visits Buffalo on Thursday, while New York welcomes Edmonton on Friday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 19, 2023.
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