NEW YORK – It’s tough to play with no margin for error.

The Rangers know that and it maybe was the reason for their 4-1 loss to Toronto last night.

The Blueshirts, who have scored the fewest goals in the league must be perfect on defense or will suffer what happened in this game. Getting off the game plan for a span of 8:31 in the second period, the Rangers allowed three unanswered Toronto goals.

“Our game was fine the first half," said Brendan Shanahan, who has just one goal this season. "But halfway through the second period, despite the fact that we were winning and the fact that they had little in terms of offense, we changed the way we played.

"We decided that we wanted to get in a bit of a track meet with them and we started trading chances. We made a big mistake by getting away from our game. It's tough to stick with it. We're playing a good style, as far as the defensive style of our game, but it's no fun when as a team we're not scoring, so you press and you cheat, and they took advantage.”

After leading 1-0 on an early second period goal by Jaromir Jagr – yes, only his second of the season – the Leafs shot back. At 8:35, Pavel Kubina put a shot past Lundqvist from the point. Because he was screened by Mats Sundin, the goalie said he couldn’t see the puck. And that tied it at one.

Then, at 15:46 of the second Boyd Devereaux was able to intercept a clearing pass by Lundqvist, who have it to John Pohl and slipped it past the Ranger netminder.

Finally, 1:20 later, Nik Antropov put one by Fedor Tyutin to beat Lundqvist. That 3-1 lead stood until Chad Kilger added an empty netter with 16 second left in the third.

Even though it looked bad, coach Tom Renney stayed positive, but called the unusual Sunday practice today.

“Believe it or not, I still think there’s lots to like in our game,” Renney said. “What I was concerned about tonight was when they scored their first goal; we seemed to all of a sudden get really tight.”

What will happen in the practice is unknown, but it will probably focus on putting the puck in the net.

“We definitely have to score more than one or two goals. It's going to be too tough on the defense to have to rely on a one-goal game every night," Lundqvist said after falling to 3-6-1 but stopped 19 of 22 shots. "We played well, but we have to score more, and everybody knows it."

Notes: Toronto netminder Vesa Toskala had 32 saves…Going into the game, Toronto had the worst defense in the league, but the Rangers could do nothing…Actor Aaron Eckhart was at the game…The Rangers are now 1-1 on this six-game homestand.