The New York Rangers know they need to take more shots on goal Wednesday night when they visit the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Rangers (28-34-9, 65 points) managed only 10 shots on goal Monday in a 2-1 home loss to the Ottawa Senators.
They will catch the Maple Leafs (30-29-13, 73 points) on the second half of back-to-back games. Toronto earned a 4-2 road victory over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday.
The Rangers last had 10 shots on goal in a 1-0 win over the St. Louis Blues on Jan. 2, 1999. The franchise worst was nine shots on goal on Dec. 11, 1955, in a 2-0 loss to the Detroit Red Wings. New York originally was credited with just nine shots vs. Ottawa, but the total was increased to 10 after a league reassessment on Tuesday.
The performance on Monday was particularly disappointing because it came in the 1,000th game of Rangers forward Mika Zibanejad.
“It’s not that we didn’t have a good night, we just got outcompeted,” Rangers captain J.T. Miller said. “That’s the part that’s hard to live with. Like I mentioned, looking inward at yourself, you’re just not doing enough. We don’t do enough. I’m not doing enough to help my team right now as a leader.”
Rangers coach Mike Sullivan added, “I’ll acknowledge that our circumstance is difficult, but I don’t think there’s any room for rationalizing. I think we’ve got to play a game with more commitment.”
The Rangers are last in the Eastern Conference and are close to missing the playoffs for the second straight season.
“We struggled getting pucks through from the blue line,” Sullivan said. “Our last five games, for example, we’re averaging 46.6 shot attempts, shots (on target) in the mid-20s, and that’s just not enough to generate offense, to get consistent offense. So we’ve got to simplify the game, but some of it is just execution. You’ve got to get pucks through.”
The Maple Leafs on Tuesday improved to 3-8-4 in their past 15 games thanks in part to the return of goaltender Anthony Stolarz, who made 18 saves.
Stolarz missed a scheduled start in Toronto’s 5-2 road loss to the Ottawa Senators on Saturday after being struck by a puck on the throat during the warmup. He was taken to a hospital but was able to leave town with the team.
Stolarz made two important saves on Morgan Geekie and David Pastrnak on Tuesday to keep Boston’s lead at 1-0.
“I think since the (Olympic) break I’ve been playing exceptionally well,” Stolarz said. “I wanted to keep the ball rolling. Looking at the other end and (seeing) one of the better goalies in the league in (Jeremy) Swayman, you know you have to be on your game.”
Swayman made 31 saves.
“It was a really good team effort,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “I thought everybody contributed and did their job. The biggest thing for me was the checking side of things. At 5-on-5, we didn’t give much up, not many shots, and most of their shots came on the power play.”
Toronto’s Matthew Knies scored twice (one short-handed, one into an empty net on a power play), William Nylander had a goal and an assist, Max Domi tallied on a power play and John Tavares added three assists.
“Special teams were a key, obviously, with the penalties,” Berube said. “The PK did a really good job, and the power play came up with a big goal. Our goalie was really good.
“I thought Matthew Knies was really good all around. That (short-handed) goal was huge for us, just with the power he presents and the strength and skating.”
