Rangers lose Gaborik, Drury to injury in loss to Leafs

Heading into Friday night's home opener, one burning question was whether captain Chris Drury, returning from a broken finger, would provide a lift to Marian Gaborik and Alex Frolov, the wingers on the Rangers' top line.

By the middle of the second period, the question became whether there was any future for that line at all.

Phil Kessel scored on a power play in overtime to give the Leafs a 4-3 win, their fourth straight to start the season. But the Rangers lost their sniper Gaborik to injury, which will prove more costly than the overtime loss.

Gaborik separated his left shoulder and is out two to three weeks. Drury has a break on the same finger, in a different spot, but is out six weeks.

Gaborik, the Rangers' leading scorer last season with 42 goals, injured his left shoulder after being knocked into the boards by Colby Armstrong at 2:33 of the second period and didn't return. Armstrong was called for a minor boarding penalty.

Drury appeared to jam his finger on a check and also went off for an exam in the second.

The Rangers were down 3-1 at that point, but rallied on two Brian Boyle goals in the third period to force overtime.

"When we found out we lost Marian and Dru, everybody had to rally," Brandon Dubinsky said. "We're a strong team, we'll just have to play through it until they get back."

In the second period, the Leafs had dominated the Rangers, erasing a 1-0 lead on Michal Rozsival's first-period goal by scoring three times in the middle period and outshooting the Rangers 30-12.

Remarkably, the Rangers weren't done. In the third period the Rangers found themselves down two key players, two goals and a bleak scenario. But Boyle, and superb penalty-killing, including helping to snuff out a five-on-three for 1:10, forced the game into overtime, and assured the Rangers of a point. Henrik Lundqvist stopped 33 shots for the Rangers.

With 2:12 left in overtime, Staal was called for interference along the boards, the Leafs' seventh power play, and Kessel ended the comeback with the second goal of the game on the four-on-three.

Boyle had started the comeback by snapping a high wrister from the right side off a rush to make it 3-2. And when Colton Orr was called for roughing, the Rangers went on their fourth power play, but it was negated when Ruslan Fedotenko was banished for roughing and then Sean Avery, behind the play, slashed Mike Komisarek twice.

But the Rangers killed the five-on-three, allowing just one shot on goal, and rallied to tie on Boyle's second goal - his second-career two-goal game - from the slot, as Leafs goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere lost track of the puck, was backed into the net and didn't move. Avery set up Boyle to earn his second assist.

"We came out well in the second," Boyle, "but then you could see that their speed took over. We realized that we really had to get in their faces. In the third, we weren't going to be pushed around."