NEW YORK — The Maple Leafs scrooged themselves on the cusp of a team record, with no Christmas-inspired Miracle on 34th Street to extend Mitch Marner’s points streak.
Both Marner’s run of 23 games with a goal or assist and Toronto’s bid to match the club record of 16 games with at least a point fell victim to the Rangers in a 3-1 decision Thursday at Madison Square Garden.
The Leafs had trouble stringing passes in the first period and well on their way to close to 30 giveaways, including a bunch by Auston Matthews.
New York’s Filip Chytil opened the scoring with Mark Giordano in the box. Toronto did break through later in the first period, Conor Timmins adding to his three assists against the Ducks on Tuesday, setting up David Kampf and in turn, Michael Bunting for a tap in. That extended Bunting’s point streak to 10 games, seven assists at the start and goals in the last three.
Marner and the top Leafs were out for an extended middle-period shift that hemmed New York in more than a minute which nearly saw him get both a goal and helper. But then came a second and third wonky power play of the evening with no real chances produced, bracketed by a go-ahead goal by Jimmy Vesey from an errant Matthews centring pass.
Vesey, the well-travelled former Leaf, patiently avoided a sliding defenceman and went short side on Matt Murray before adding an empty netter.
Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe moved some of his lines around in hopes of generating a tying goal, but was down a defenceman after Timothy Liljegren was not on the bench the final period.
Marner was attempting to match or better Patrick Kane’s mark of 26 games with a goal or assist, most by an active NHLer. The team points’ mark ends at 12-0-3, 19 years after Pat Quinn’s team made it to 14-1-1.
“We’re not aware of anything like that,” Marner said before the game. “It’s pretty cool, but we’ll see, just make sure we’re doing our things right.”
Keefe was also not about to get carried away with pre-game plaudits about the streak.
“You don’t aspire to reach any sort of milestone or record or anything, just trying to give yourself a chance to win every game you play. Fundamentally as a coach, I believe we can win every game so that’s how I go about it, no matter who is in or out of the lineup or the schedule. Today’s just another day.”
The Rangers, meanwhile, are pulling out of an early season funk, winners of five in a row and while not looking particularly dominant through those games, it’s given coach Gerard Gallant some breathing room.
Keefe made no lineup changes for the Rangers, other than Murray, setting up Ilya Samsonov to face Alex Ovechkin and his old team on Saturday in Washington.
Before Thursday’s game, Gallant had an interesting take on the Leafs, beyond the obvious that goaltending and scoring have taken them this far in November and December.
“I think their team is tired of losing so they want to keep doing what they’re doing. They look real confident. They lost a couple of really good defencemen, you thought they’d fall a bit and they didn’t.”
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