The Rangers get another crack at fixing their road problem Thursday night, and the assignment is a stiff one: an Original 6 matchup in Toronto against the Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena.
New York arrives at 7-3-1 after a 5-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks at Madison Square Garden on Monday, good enough to keep the Rangers in second place in the Metropolitan Division, two points behind the Carolina Hurricanes. But the home success has not traveled. The Rangers are just 1-3-1 in five road games this season, a sharp contrast to their recent track record of winning at least 20 games away from MSG in each of the past five seasons.
That slide includes three straight road games without a win (0-2-1) dating to Nov. 9 in Washington, the night Igor Shesterkin sustained his season-ending knee injury. The most recent loss was a 1-0 overtime defeat to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday.
“We have to build the same exact game on the road because we’ve been struggling recently,” defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov said Wednesday about carrying their strong home-ice play on to the road. “But I think we can translate that, the last game was pretty good for us.”
The Rangers have been perfect at home at 6-0-0, and after Toronto they head to Canada again for a matchup with the Ottawa Senators on Saturday.
Toronto, meanwhile, is looking to make it three in a row after beating the San Jose Sharks 3-1 at home and the Blue Jackets 6-2 on the road earlier in the week. The Maple Leafs are 5-4-2 after what the source describes as an “epic fail” in 2025-26, when they finished one point ahead of the Rangers in the overall standings and missed the playoffs.
The offseason brought major change. Toronto won the NHL Draft Lottery and used the No. 1 pick on 18-year-old forward Gavin McKenna. New general manager John Chayka also remade the roster, highlighted by a trade with the Blue Jackets right before the season opener for forward Kirill Marchenko, whom the team then signed to a long-term contract.
Auston Matthews remains the headliner, and he’s off to a strong bounce-back start. He is tied for second in the NHL with eight goals and 18 points through 11 games.
McKenna has six points, with three goals and three assists, and sits one point off the rookie lead. Marchenko has also made an immediate impact with 11 points, including five goals and six assists, in 11 games since the deal.
“Their top unit is dangerous. They’re fast, they’re skilled, can shoot the puck.
Now with the Marchenko trade, they got more dangerous. So, we’ve got to make them defend and play on our terms,” Gavrikov explained.
One familiar Toronto name will not be in the lineup: John Tavares is week to week with a lower-body injury.
Special teams could loom large. Both clubs have been excellent on the penalty kill, with Toronto leading the league at 97.4 percent after allowing one goal in 38 short-handed situations, and New York right behind at 94.1 percent with two goals allowed in 34 chances. The Rangers have not given up a power-play goal on the road this season and are a perfect 13-for-13 away from home.
Dylan Garand gets his sixth straight start in net for New York, while two-time Stanley Cup winner Sergei Bobrovsky will start for Toronto.
“I think it’s a tough test, Toronto obviously is a good team,” Rangers forward Will Cuylle said. “I think we need to play to our strengths, which are defending hard and not giving up much. They’re a high-caliber offensive team, so making sure we’re defending hard and the offensive chances should come from that.”
New York’s projected lineup has Gabe Perreault with Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere; Tye Kartye, J.T. Miller and Pavel Dorofeyev; Will Cuylle, Noah Laba and Eeli Tolvanen; and Oliver Bjorkstrand, Justin Dowling and Taylor Raddysh. The defense pairs listed are Valdislav Gavrikov with Adam Fox, Marcus Pettersson with Sean Durzi, and Alberts Smits with Braden Schneider.
The game is set for Thursday, October 22 at 7 p.m. ET, and it will air on MSG.
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