TORONTO — The Rangers had given up on their playoff aspirations months ago, but this loss made it official.
A 4-3 loss to the Maple Leafs Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena effectively eliminated the Rangers from playoff contention with 10 games left in the 2025-26 campaign, putting a fork in an already-dead season.
The Blueshirts are just the second club to be eliminated this early in the season, joining the last-place Vancouver Canucks.
Toronto, playing on the second night of a back-to-back slate on Wednesday, spoiled Adam Sykora’s NHL debut.
The Rangers were able to surpass their shot total from Monday’s loss in the first period alone, but they still went into the first intermission trailing 2-0.
After Jake McCabe buried a long rebound to open the scoring, Max Domi attacked the reunited Will Borgen-Braden Schneider pairing later in the period.
Closing in on the Rangers duo, Domi dished to Nicholas Robertson, who had a clear shooting lane to beat Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin and double Toronto’s lead.
It was the eighth time Borgen and Schneider skated together this season. For the first five times, Schneider was on his offside on the left.
On the last three occasions, however, Borgen was on the left.
Head coach Mike Sullivan had previously said a “big part” of what kept Vincent Iorio out of the lineup was the two right-handed defensemen’s lack of comfort with the switch.
Out of “necessity,” with Urho Vaakanainen unavailable due to injury, Sullivan put the two together on Wednesday.
The pairing was shaky through the first 20 minutes, so Sullivan put them both on their preferred side to start the second period. Iorio skated with Borgen and Schneider lined up next to Matthew Robertson for the remainder of the game.
Ranked sixth in the NHL this month, the Rangers power play kept them competitive in this game.
Alexis Lafrenière was at the heart of each play, scoring one and directly setting up the other, as his impressive stretch continued.
Receiving the puck at the side of the crease, the 2020 first-overall pick pulled it back and buried it past Toronto goalie Joseph Woll to cut the Maple Leafs’ lead 3-1.
He then zipped a cross-ice feed to Mika Zibanejad later in the period, which the Swedish center blasted into the net to make it a one-goal game.
With three points on the night, Lafreniere reached the 50-point plateau for just the second time in his six-year NHL career.
The power-play goal was the first of two on the night for Zibanejad, who moved into fourth on the Rangers’ all-time goals list.
His backhander off the rush at the 13:04 mark of the third period kept his team within one.