'He came up big for them': Shesterkin otherworldly as Maple Leafs fall to Rangers

TORONTO — Five minutes into the third period of a raucous, back-and-forth Saturday-night tilt under the Scotiabank Arena lights, the crowd was on their feet. 

They were raining down chants on their Toronto Maple Leafs, peppering them with applause when they slammed a visiting New York Ranger into the boards, or whipped a puck towards the opposing cage — anything they could do to try and spur on the hometown boys. 

The blue-and-white had cut a two-goal Rangers lead in half, Auston Matthews wheeling around the cage and sniping from in close for his second of the season. And there was No. 34 again, the crowd gasping as he collected a cross-ice laser beam from Mitch Marner at the netfront, going against the grain to try to slide it far-side, an inch away from pulling his club level.

And there was Igor Shesterkin, too, all poise and controlled chaos, extending a right pad, kicking away the threat, holding Toronto at bay.

“He’s just a really good goalie,” Matthews said of the Rangers’ star tender from the locker room after the night had wound to a close, a nail-biter spun into a 4-1 New York win courtesy of a couple late empty-netters. “Very composed. He’s not the biggest guy but he’s very athletic, and he seems to come up with big saves when his team needs it.”

The 28-year-old did that plenty Saturday night, turning aside 34 of the 35 shots the home side poured on him. But it wasn’t just the pile of stops he collected that showed the Russian netminder’s level, it was when they came — in the early going, when the Maple Leafs came out buzzing; in the moments after Toronto finally broke through, when momentum started to build; and over the course of an ice-tilting third period in general, in which the hosts funnelled more than half of their 35 shots at New York’s net.

“You can see why he’s going to be the highest-paid goalie in the league,” Toronto’s Anthony Stolarz offered post-game, after having to go toe-to-toe with the 2022 Vezina Trophy winner. “He came up big for them tonight.”

In the stiffest test they’ve yet faced in this young season, the Maple Leafs surely had their chances. Days after their coach challenged them to ward off complacency, to crush the pedal into the floor, Toronto seemingly got the message. Down a goal heading into the second period, they came out determined, setting up residence in the Rangers’ zone for the majority of the opening five minutes, throwing everything they could at the net. Down a pair heading into the third, they ramped it up even further, fighting through bodies to get one back, matching their shot total from the opening 40 minutes in that final 20.

No. 31 in white rendered the effort null and void.

“We couldn’t find the back of the net,” head coach Craig Berube said simply when asked to summarize the tilt post-game. “We had opportunities. I think we can do a better job of taking his eyes away a little bit more, but we had a lot of looks. They just didn’t go in.”

“We’ve just got to find ways to beat him,” added young Matthew Knies, whose dogged effort behind the Rangers’ cage helped set up Toronto’s lone goal on the night. “It starts with just getting to the paint, being around there. Like you saw on Auston’s goal, it was right by the net, just traffic and chaos. That’s what we need more of. 

“We didn’t have enough of that today.”

Even so, it’s an effort that likely won’t leave the home side overly dejected, the loss more a function of failing to crack the code on how to beat one of the game’s best puck-stoppers than failing to make a real go of it.

“We did enough to score. Maybe not enough in front of their goalie,” Matthews said post-game. “I mean, he’s one of the best in the league, so you’ve got to make sure you’ve got guys in front of him, create a little more havoc. I thought he saw too much. But, I mean, I thought we did a lot of really good things. We did more than enough to hang in there throughout the game.”

The performance from the man in the cage on the opposite side of the sheet went a long way in allowing them to hang in it as long as they did.

While the Rangers put two by Stolarz — a buried rebound off a wild netfront tip for the first, some all-world passing on a delayed penalty call facilitating the second — the 30-year-old turned in another steady effort Saturday night, all told. 

The final score (bolstered by a pair of empty-netters) and his final stat line (25 saves on 27 shots) might not tell that story. But it was the timeliness of those 25 stops — the collection of moments throughout the night when Stolarz waved away a bit of Artemi Panarin wizardry or a Mika Zibanejad one-timer — that allowed Toronto to get to the game’s final minutes with a puncher’s chance at all.

“He’s been incredible for us,” Knies said of the netminder, who’s taken over the starting job with presumed No. 1 Joseph Woll sidelined by a groin injury. “We trust him a lot, and we put a lot of faith in him. He’s been delivering, doing a great job. We’ve just got to support him more and make his life a little bit easier.”

For Stolarz himself, on a night that saw him go up against one of the big leagues’ best, and get tagged early, the mindset over the course of the night as the pressure ramped up was simple.

“Just not letting in another goal,” he said. “You’re just trying to stay in there and keep it close. Obviously, you can see this team is talented, so if you give one up, you just want to forget about it and just focus on that next shot. I thought I did a really good job of that tonight.”

It didn’t come without some tumult, Stolarz fighting through a rollercoaster evening that saw him at different points lose a skate blade mid-play, lose his other skate blade mid-play, lose his stick after taking a bump from a passing Ranger, and nearly have his leg cut by a skate that slipped under his pad.

Still, he was steady enough to keep his club alive. And while it might not have been quite enough to save the Maple Leafs from their second defeat of the campaign, in his coach’s eyes, Stolarz did all that was asked of him.

“I thought he had a solid game,” Berube said after the dust had settled on the night. “He was great. He did what he had to do.

“He gave us a chance to win.”