The two Swedish-born goalies, Henrik Lundqvist and Frederick Andersen, went at it in the New York Rangers 2-1 shootout victory.

  • New York Rangers 2 (39-19-2, 80 pts)
  • Toronto Maple Leafs 1 (28-20-12, 68 pts)
  • NHL, Final, Shootout, Box Score
  • Air Canada Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
For most of the contest north of the border in the hockey capital of the world, the New York Rangers simply couldn’t break through. The young Toronto Maple Leafs simply had the Blueshirts’ number all night, shutting them out for over 2.5 periods.

Finally, J.T. Miller found a loose puck in front of the net that provided New York with their 83rd third-period goal of the season (the most in the NHL) and, more importantly, the equalizer in a hotly-contested game.

For a struggling power play, puck possession got it done when Alain Vigneault‘s squad needed it most. (Officially, the goal came after the man advantage had expired.)

The goal set up a fabulous overtime frame that saw, for the most part, the Rangers put on severe pressure early. The way the frame ended, however, is something that’ll have traditionalist stumped as to why they’d ever want to get rid of the 3-on-3 overtime:

In the shootout, Mats Zuccarello and Mika Zibanejad buried their chances as Henrik Lundqvist stopped two of the three shots he was tasked with:

Speaking of No. 30, he was solid all night. Hank stopped 32 of 33 shots as he ultimately won a terrific goalie duel. On the other side, fellow Swede Frederick Andersen stymied the Rangers offense by stonewalling 37 of 38 opportunities. Without Anderson, the young Leafs would have been in trouble much of the evening.

Connor Brown was the only Leaf to score in the game, midway through the first period, his 15th of the season.

Next up for New York will be the crosstown New Jersey Devils at The Rock on Saturday night.

 NEXT: Rangers finish February with active stretch