NHL Game Preview - Montreal at NY Rangers

Sun Oct 8, 2017 7:00 PM EDT

The New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens will take the ice at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night less than 24 hours after suffering lopsided road losses.

The Maple Leafs ripped the Rangers 8-5 in Toronto, chasing goaltender Henrik Lundqvist after 20 minutes, while the Capitals blitzed Carey Price and the Canadiens 6-1 in Washington.

Lundqvist and Price combined to allow nine goals on 31 shots in 40 minutes, making it likely they'll both be on the ice Sunday when it was originally scheduled to be a day of rest for both.

"That was a tough one," Lundqvist told the New York Daily News. "I'm not gonna try to look for excuses. I need to be better."

"It's an embarrassing start," New York forward Mats Zuccarello, who had a goal and three assists in the loss, told the Daily News. "We let in eight goals. That's not our identity at all. We've got to realize we've got to defend first here. We're not gonna win games like this. It's gonna be a long season if we play like this. Just not good enough."

The Rangers are 0-2-0 to start the season and Lundqvist has allowed eight goals in four periods. Ondrej Pavelec didn't fare well in his New York debut as he gave up three goals on 24 shots in relief, short-circuiting a comeback that saw his team pull into a 5-all tie.

"We gave up so many chances that I think it could have been worse," forward J.T. Miller said to the New York Post. "We kind of left Hanky out to dry there. (Pavelec) gave us a chance and we had a really good second period when we stuck to the game plan. But the game was too wide open. We're not a chance-for-chance type of team."

Price was victimized by three Alex Ovechkin goals in the first period as the Habs fell behind 3-0 in the first 2:51 and 4-0 after the first period.

"I don't think we were very sharp off the get-go, obviously," Price said to the Montreal Gazette. "We just needed to come out with a better effort in the first. It's tough when you fall behind like that.

"They came out of the gun. It's their home opener and we didn't match their intensity. I think we'll make our adjustments and come back better (Sunday)."

The Rangers and Candiens met in the first round of the playoffs last year, with the Rangers winning the low-scoring series in six games.

"We had some really bad turnovers early on and they're a team with speed and transition," defenseman Shea Weber told the Montreal Gazette after Saturday's loss. "It wasn't even in the neutral zone ... it was exciting our own end. We were throwing pucks in the middle of the ice and those pucks were coming right back, either resulted in penalties or goals."

"We had some breakdowns," Canadiens coach Claude Julien told the Montreal Gazette. "When you spot a team three goals early like that, it's pretty hard to come back in this league. They had a good start and we weren't ready for that. So that's on us. Once that game is 4-0, it's pretty hard the rest of the way. But it was important for us to try and find our game. I thought we were much better in the second period, although the damage was done.

"It's early in the season. We need to learn from these things. We need to fix those things and we got an opportunity tomorrow night to go into New York and be much better."