NHL

Rangers dominate Maple Leafs after falling behind early

No, there’s no such thing as a must-win game this early, no matter how much the lockout has shortened the season.

But last night at the Garden, with a performance that only momentarily looked out of reach no matter how the scoreboard read, the Rangers got their season back on track with a 5-2 win over the Maple Leafs.

“This morning going to the rink, we just couldn’t wait to play,” said Brad Richards, who scored the first of the Rangers’ five consecutive goals that actually quantified how much they had outplayed the Leafs. “That was the best 60 minutes we put together so far this year.”

So, yes, it was a 2-0 deficit after one period, and a 2-1 score after two. But the Rangers were outskating, outshooting and outworking a Maple Leafs team coming off a 7-4 home loss to the Islanders on Thursday when they blew a 3-1 lead.

The Rangers were coming off a sloppy loss to the Flyers in Philadelphia, their third defeat in the first four games, all of them seeming to distance this team from last year’s, the one that made it to the Eastern Conference finals.

“I’m glad we won, and I’m glad the way we won,” coach John Tortorella said. “We didn’t lose our composure.”

It would have been understandable had the Rangers lost their composure, having outshot the Leafs 14-3 in the first period but nothing but a doughnut on the scoreboard because of the terrific play of goalie James Reimer. He made several outstanding stops, most notably on a Rick Nash breakaway halfway through the first.

“Sometimes goalies can steal games, and at times it looked like that could happen,” Richards said. “But there’s nothing else to do except keep firing things at him, and that’s what we just keep going out there, going to the net, hoping good things would happen.”

The reason they were in the hole was because of a very bad turnover from defenseman Ryan McDonagh that lead to Mikhail Grabovski game-opening goal 6:25 in, then a power-play tally from James van Riemsdyk after the Rangers took a too-many-men penalty.

“[McDonagh] makes a play that he’ll never make, has never made here,” Tortorella said. “We take a too-men-many on the ice and you know the puck is in the back of the net with the way things are going for our team.”

Yet the Rangers fought back, not letting the score cloud their resiliency.

“Not getting down, not getting frustrated,” Richards said, “and finally the flood gates opened.”

And did they ever.

After Richards’ doorstep stuff, defenseman Marc Staal tied the game by converting a splendid goal-line pass from Michael Del Zotto, 7:36 into the third.

“Just a great play in general there,” Del Zotto said. “That was a big goal for us.”

It was followed up by Gaborik’s fourth of the season on a deflection, Del Zotto shooting one in off of Brian Boyle’s body, and then Gaborik tossing one into the empty net to finish things off.

“We were wearing them out,” Staal said from under the newly minted Broadway Hat, fresh for a new season and large enough to actually fit around his scalp. “It’s a good one to build on.”