Recap: Rangers Comeback Falls Short in Toronto

TORONTO - Facing a team that has been just about unbeatable in its home rink for two months now, the Rangers just kept on taking a punch and landing one of their own. It was a night in which they simply wouldn't go away but wound up falling one punch short.
"I love the fact that we battled back and didn't quit," David Quinn said afterward.
Mitch Marner scored twice, including an empty-netter, in a four-goal third period for the Maple Leafs, and a furious Ranger rally fell just short at the end of a 5-3 Blueshirts loss at Scotiabank Centre.
Buoyed by a four-minute penalty kill in the second period, the Rangers were locked in a 1-1 tie to start the third, when a rebound shot by Marner glanced in off his teammate for the early tiebreaking goal. The 21-year-old winger received credit for two other Toronto scores - including an empty-netter - to extend his team-leading points total to 50.

"That's a good team, a lot of skill, so they capitalized on our mistakes in the third," said Chris Kreider, who brought the Rangers within a goal with under four minutes to play in the game. "We're right there. Right there the whole night."

Kevin Hayes scored a goal (off a brilliant play by Filip Chytil) and added an assist for the Rangers to stretch his points streak to six games, a career high - Hayes has multiple points in five of those games. Neal Pionk had a goal and an assist of his own for the blueliner's fourth multipoint game this season, and he was one of four Rangers, the rest of them forwards, with four shots on goal in the game.
And Alexandar Georgiev, taking back-to-back starts for the first time in 2018-19, regrouped from a fluky early goal and kept his team in a close game for much of the night. He finished with 31 saves before heading to the bench for an extra attacker in the final stages as the Rangers continued banging on the door but could never muster the late equalizer before Marner scored unassisted into the empty net with 19.2 seconds on the clock.
"There's a lot of good things out of tonight," Quinn said, "but there are certainly things that we need to improve on and learn from."
The loss was just the Rangers' second regulation defeat over their last seven games, but they fell to 1-6 over their last seven games on the road. They return home to Madison Square Garden - where they are 11-4-3 - on Sunday night to face the Flyers before the NHL adjourns for a three-day Christmas break.
The Maple Leafs, meanwhile, won for the eighth time in nine games on home ice (8-0-1), during which time they have outscored opponents 43-18. They won for the third straight time overall, scoring 18 goals in the three games.
Given the depth of talent on the Maple Leafs, the Rangers made it one of their goals entering this game not to hand over an abundance of power plays, and the visitors committed only two minors in the game. Both of them came at 6:10 of the second period when, with the Leafs leading 1-0, Adam McQuaid went after Nazem Kadri for exchanging shoves with Georgiev (Kadri received no penalty), picking up a crosschecking minor to go along with a delayed holding call that was already coming.

The Rangers killed all four minutes, and less than five minutes later, Pionk leaped off the bench to skate onto Jimmy Vesey's pass just over the blue line, wound up and drilled one past Frederik Andersen. It was Pionk fifth goal this season, while Vesey's setup gave him five assists in his last six games.
"Our kill was inspiring tonight," Kreider said. "Working their (tails) off. You see guys breathing heavy when they come back to the bench - they were leaving it out there."
That sent a tie game into second intermission, but the third period began much like the first period did, with the Rangers carrying play on the opening shifts but Toronto needing just one opening to get the early tiebreaking goal. This one came off a John Tavares faceoff win, with the puck getting back to the Leafs centerman for a shot that Georgiev kicked out, only for Marner to barrel in for the shot that got a piece of Andreas Johnsson.
"They're so opportunistic," Quinn said, "It's a good hockey game, and the third starts okay, and then we blow a faceoff coverage and it goes in the back of the net."
The Leafs made it a two-goal game 3:49 later, when Johnsson curled out of the corner with a puck and fed Morgan Rielly, the league's leading scorer among defensemen, streaking in from the left for his 12th goal.
"They didn't stop playing their game," Kreider said of the Leafs. "They were flipping pucks up and coming at us with speed."
"They've got the talent to take advantage of those types of mistakes," Quinn said. "The faceoff play, we haven't had anything resembling that all year long, and unfortunately tonight we make that type of mistake and it ends up in the back of our net."
But the Rangers kept playing their game, too, and Hayes brought them back within one just 1:12 after the Rielly goal - though it was Chytil who made the play. He dragged the puck behind him and then up through his feet, skate-to-stick as he moved around Rielly in the right circle, then chopped the puck on goal as he was falling to his knees. The rebound sat for Hayes to bang home at 5:26.
Tavares set up Marner with a beauty of his own, going behind the back for Marner to walk in alone on Georgiev and stretch the lead back to two with 7:07 to play - but the Rangers still weren't done. Kreider's redirection of Staal's wrister from the left made it 4-3 with 3:41 to go, and the Rangers continued to have chances from there.
Kreider in particular was lamenting his near-miss of a backdoor setup to Mika Zibanejad. "If I can just execute that play, we're coming away with at least a point," he said.
"We kept playing, we didn't give up, we competed, and we had some chances 6-on-5 to tie it," Quinn said. "Unfortunately, we just weren't able to do it."
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