Miracle on Ice, the New York Rangers beat the Islanders 2-1 in Brooklyn

It was a day of firsts.  The first New York Ranger win of 2019.  The first Ranger win at the Barclays Center.  The first road win over the Islanders since March 10, 2015.  The Cup is ours!  Not quite, but this was a very encouraging victory.

With six minutes left in the hockey game the score was tied 1-1.  Every Ranger fan was waiting for that deflating winning goal by Mathew Barzal.  That kind of crushing blow has become an inevitability this season.

But a miracle happened.  Tony DeAngelo sent the puck to the front of the crease, with Chris Kreider creating havoc in front, Mats Zuccarello channeled  Lionel Messi and deflected the puck towards the net with his skate and it trickled through Robin Lehner and over the goal line.

The Rangers deserved this win.  They battled hard and came from behind, outshooting the Islanders 26-25 and not allowing a power play goal (asterisk required).  The goals came from players who really needed it.  Filip Chytil scored the tying  goal and Mats Zuccarello had the game winner.

Chris Kreider came back from being benched in the second period after taking another stupid penalty, to play a dynamic game.  Tony DeAngelo came back from sitting out games to play one of his best games as a Ranger. Alexandar Georgiev had another strong game versus the Isles.

In the first period, the Rangers did everything in their power to give this game to the Islanders.  They took three penalties, but were able to kill them all.

Despite the penalties, the Isles only outshot the Rangers 10-8.  The Isles did take 17 shots to the Rangers 11 and won 10 faceoffs to the Rangers four.  One indication that the Rangers meant business was that they outhit the Islanders 16-8.

The second period was more of the same. It was back and forth action until Chris Kreider took his third dumb penalty this year, holding Jordan Eberle right after one of the best Ranger shifts of the game.   The Rangers killed the penalty, but just as the penalty expired, Anthony Beauvillier scored.

Though it wasn’t officially a power play goal, there were only four Ranger skaters on the ice when it went in.  That earned Kreider a seat on the bench for the remainder of the period.

Five minutes later, Boo Nieves stripped Jordan Eberle of the puck in the neutral zone and led the rush into the Islanders end.  He dished the puck to Filip Chytil who put the puck past Lehner.  Here are two angles of the goal.

With the score tied, there was some penalty craziness as both teams had two man advantage. The first was for the Rangers when Brock Nelson and Lucas Sbisa took penalties.  The Rangers had 1:23 of two man advantage and the result was predictable.  No shots on goal. David Quinn even called a timeout to discuss strategy.  The Islanders had :48 of the two man advantage when Jesper Fast was called for tripping and then Ryan Strome hit Cal Clutterbuck with an errant high stick. The result was the same, no goals.  The second period ended with the score tied and the Islanders with an 7-8 shot advantage.

That set the stage for the Mats Zuccarello heroics.

That left the Rangers with 5:05 to kill, time that was aided by a Valtteri Filppula hooking penalty with 2:17 left.  The Rangers kept the Islanders bottled up in their own end and unable to pull their goalie until there were :48 seconds left in the game.  Georgiev made a nice save on an Anders Lee tip with seconds left and the Rangers were on their way.

My three stars of the game

Alexandar Georgiev

is becoming an Islander killer. He has played in three games versus the Fishsticks and has a GAA of 0.87 and a .967 save percentage.  He made the key saves when needed in this game and gives further proof why he should be playing more.

The official three stars of the game

1. Mats Zuccarello
2. Filip Chytil
3. Anthony Beauvillier