Markstrom helps Canucks send Rangers to fourth straight loss

NEW YORK-- Jacob Markstrom made 38 saves, and the Vancouver Canucks scored three times in the first period to defeat the New York Rangers 3-2 at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser and Jay Beagle scored for the Canucks (5-3-0), who lost 1-0 to the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center on Saturday, ending a four-game winning streak. Horvat's goal was his 100th in the NHL.
Elias Pettersson had two assists for the Canucks, who outshot the Rangers 37-23 in the first two periods.
WATCH: [All Canucks vs. Rangers highlights]
"Probably the best two periods of hockey that we've had in, man, I can't remember, maybe since I've been here, really," Canucks coach Travis Green said. "We felt like it should have been six or 7-1 after two."
Markstrom made 16 saves in the third period, when the Rangers had a 17-6 advantage in shots on goal.
It was Markstrom's first game since Oct. 12. He left the Canucks to return home to Sweden for personal reasons last week. He missed two games then returned Friday in time to be the backup to Thatcher Demko in New Jersey on Saturday.
"He's had a tough week," Green said. "To see how he played [Sunday], it's good for him, it's good for our team. That's a moment. I know he hasn't talked about his past week, but he's had a hard week. You feel for a guy like that that competes the way he does and loves to win and is a real warrior for our team. We were a little nervous putting him in, he hadn't had a lot of time on the ice. Happy for him."

Jesper Fast had a goal and an assist, and Artemi Panarin scored for the Rangers (2-4-0). Henrik Lundqvist made 40 saves.
The Rangers have lost four in a row, all in regulation, since winning their first two games.
"You can not win a game in the first but you can definitely lose one," Lundqvist said. "That's what happened today. They were ready to play and we were not. It felt like they were beating us all over the ice. It was just too easy for them to create big scoring chances."
Horvat scored on the power play at 6:01 of the first, a shot from inside the left circle off a pass from Pettersson, to give the Canucks a 1-0 lead.
Horvat had seven shots on goal, two blocks and won 11 of 15 face-offs.
"His best game of the year for sure," Green said.
Boeser made it 2-0 at 13:34 by capitalizing off a Rangers defensive zone turnover with a shot from between the circles that hit off Lundqvist's glove and went into the net.
Beagle avoided a backcheck and an attempted stick lift by Mika Zibanejad to get off a quick wrist shot from inside the right circle that gave the Canucks a 3-0 lead at 16:53.
"I just think we were doing a lot of good things," Horvat said. "We weren't playing defense and when you're not playing defense you're doing something right."
Fast cut the Canucks lead to 3-1, scoring off a deflection of Jacob Trouba's shot at 14:58 of the second period. Panarin made it 3-2 with a one-timer from the right circle off a pass from Fast at 5:31 of the third.
"To be able to come back for how poorly we played in the first part of the game I guess is a good sign," Rangers coach David Quinn said. "We did find some rhythm. I thought we started playing with a little bit more oomph in the last five minutes of the second and obviously we carried it over to the third. That is one of the silver linings."

They said it

"It's not going to be so pretty always, especially on a back to back. This is a tough and fun building to come into play and our performance the first two periods were super impressive, and I even liked the end of the third when we battled even better." -- Canucks goalie Jacob Markstrom
"We didn't look that fresh, I guess, in a sense of where we didn't play smart enough in the first. We ran around a little bit too much and just lost sight a little bit of our structure and our system, and they got their openings. We've got to play smarter." -- Rangers center Mika Zibanejad

Need to know

The Canucks were 1-for-3 with nine shots on the power play. They were 0-for-12 with 10 shots in their previous two games. … Horvat is the fourth player selected in the 2013 NHL Draft to score 100 goals, joining Calgary Flames center Sean Monahan (174), Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon (159) and Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov (135). … Zibanejad, who had an assist on Panarin's goal, has been on the ice for 12 of the Rangers' 17 goals this season.

What's next

Canucks:At the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET; SN360, CITY, FS-D, NHL.TV)
Rangers: Host the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; MSG, FS-A, FS-A Plus, NHL.TV)