Rangers officially eliminated from playoffs in season that was already lost

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TORONTO — The Rangers had given up on their playoff aspirations months ago, but this loss made it official.

A 4-3 defeat to the Maple Leafs on Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena officially 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 Canucks.

“I don’t think anybody thought we’d be where we are right now, eliminated with this many games left,” captain J.T. Miller said after the loss. “But that’s not where my mind is right now. It sucks. Obviously, that’s the worst. You don’t want that. Right now, we’re just worried about playing good hockey games to end the season and feeling good going into the summer, feeling good about our game at least. Try to move in the right direction.

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“Obviously, we failed in reaching our goal this year. That being said, right now, we just worry about playing a good game against Toronto, and I thought we played a good game. Gave ourselves a chance to win.”

The Rangers were able to surpass their shot total from Monday’s loss (10) 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 off side on the left. On the past three occasions, however, Borgen was on the left. 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 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.

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“We had a discussion in between periods as a coaching staff, and we thought it would be better if we split it up with Robbie and Vince,” Sullivan said. “We mixed it up there. There were times where Borgy and Schneids played together. There were times that they didn’t. And we have our reasons in why we did it.”

Ranked sixth in the NHL this month, the Rangers power play kept them competitive in this game with two goals on four attempts.

Alexis Lafrenière was at the heart of each play, scoring one and directly setting up the other, as his impressive stretch continued. With three points on the night, Lafrenière reached the 50-point plateau for just the second time in his six-year NHL career.

Mika Zibanejad scored twice, which pushed the Swedish center into fourth on the Rangers’ all-time goals list.

Goalie Igor Shesterkin stopped 14 of the 18 shots he faced in his 16th loss of the season. Despite sitting out the past three games with an upper-body injury, Jonathan Quick continues to practice with the Rangers. Sullivan said Quick is “not there yet,” but the Rangers “think he’s getting closer.”

Noah Laba, who missed his fourth straight game with a lower-body injury, participated in morning skate in a red red noncontact jersey.