New York Rangers vs New York Islanders: A 6-2 thrashing of their rivals

The New York Rangers played one of their most impressive games of the season as they dismantled the Islanders 6-2.  It was a dominant effort and should make the last two games of the series this week all the more interesting.

The New York Rangers withstood an early goal by the Islanders, stood up to their toughest players and seemingly scored at will in one of their more complete wins of the season.  In a season that has been full of ups and downs, the Blueshirts came back from one of their worst losses of the year to record one of their best.

After they jumped out to an early lead, the Islanders tried to intimidate the Rangers, but Micheal Haley and Brendan Smith didn’t back down.  From that point until  the middle of the second period, it was all Rangers as they scored three straight goals.  The Isles mounted a comeback, but it was Alexandar Georgiev‘s turn to stand tall and he stymied them repeatedly.

The third period was the Artemi Panarin show as he scored two breakaway goals, finishing with five points on the  night.  Jacob Trouba added a power play goal and the Rangers gave up a late power play goal in garbage time.

The forecheck was superb and the Rangers maintained their composure in the defensive zone.  Add the opportunistic scoring and it was a complete effort and the score reflected the game, one sided in favor of the Blueshirts.

In the end, the game belonged to Artemi Panarin as he notched yet another multi-point game and matched a career high.  He has 67 points this season, third best in the NHL, trailing only Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and he has played two fewer games.   He is sixth in the NHL in both goals (26) and assists (41). He leads the league in even strength points with 52, ten more than Nathan MacKinnon.  He is tied for second with 1.49 points per game, only two hundredths of a point behind McDavid.

The game

The game got off to a disastrous start as yet again, the Rangers gave up an early goal.  This one was 18 seconds into the game and came off a comedy of errors in the defensive zone. Jacob Trouba was pressured and the Blueshirts were taking off on offense before the puck was cleared.  Jordan Eberle got the puck and was able to hold it until Georgiev was out of position and he scored into an empty net.

Less than two minutes later, Micheal Haley took on Ross Johnston, one of the toughest players in the league.  Johnston rained punched on Haley’s helmet before the Ranger counterpunched and caught Johnston with a couple rights.

Before the puck was dropped Brendan Smith and Matt Martin took each other on.  Both players were tossed for fighting within the same play stoppage.  They thought they had waited until the puck had been dropped, but it was a false start and the penalty for that is an automatic game misconduct.

Down 1-0 and reeling, the fights gave the Blueshirts a chance to regain their composure and Jesper Fast knotted the score at 8:14.

It came after a great forechecking shift for the Rangers and Fast scored while diving for the puck off the rebound of an Artemi Panarin shot.  The Islanders argued that Fast should have been called for slashing, but the goal stood.  On replay, they had a decent argument.

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The Rangers dominated the first period, outshooting the Islanders 17-7, but it ended with the score knotted at 1-1.  The Rangers had the only power play opportunity when Mathew Barzal was called for tripping Marc Staal, but that was unsuccessful.

In the second period, the  Rangers picked up where they left off and repeatedly had opportunities to score, but couldn’t cash in . Five minutes into the period, Chris Kreider did precisely that with a marvelous tip in of another Panarin shot.

The goal was reviewed as Kreider had deflected it dangerously close to the height of the crossbar, but since there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn it, it was ruled a goal and the Rangers had the lead.

They padded that lead when Adam Fox scored an absolutely brilliant goal at the 11:11 mark.

Under pressure, Fox carried the puck past the right faceoff circle and put the shot between Semyon Varlamov and the post.  He had the tiniest space for the shot and he found it. With this goal, Panarin notched his third point of the game, the fourth straight home game he has done that.

With the dreaded two goal lead in hand, the Islanders mounted a spirited comeback and poured a number of shots on Georgiev, who had not had a lot of work for the first half of the game. The Islanders actually outshot the Rangers 16-8 in the second period.   They had  the last eight shots of the period including  flurry of shots with about two minutes left in the period.

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The Rangers proved to be agile counter punchers when Artemi Panarin scored on a breakaway in the first minutes of the third period.

With the puck in the Rangers’ zone, a pass ticked off Michael Del Colle’s skate right to Panarin who went in all along on Varlamov and he put the puck over his shoulder with a backhand.

Eight minutes later, Panarin did it again.

Jesper Fast made the play, stealing it along the boards and sending it to Ryan  Strome who broke in on a two-on-one with Panarin.  He made the pass and Panarin puck through Varlamov.  It was Panarin’s fifth point of the night, tying a career high.

The Rangers closed out the scoring on the power play when Jacob Trouba scored.

It was a one-timer from the point off a faceoff win by Filip Chytil and a pass from Adam Fox.  The sixth goal was enough t o send Varlamov to an early shower as Thomas Greiss came in to relieve him at the 10:15 mark.

Twelve minutes into the third period, Marc Staal took a tripping penalty and Brock Nelson was able to score on the subsequent power play.

The action wasn’t over. With a little over five minutes left in the game, Mika Zibanejad was leveled by a Brock Nelson hit and immediately he was challenged by Chris Kreider and Anthony DeAngelo.  There was actually a fight between Ross Johnston and DeAngelo, but it was a total mismatch. Johnston has a six inch height advantage and a 55 pound weight advantage.  Kreider and DeAngelo both ended up with ten minute misconducts along with Johnston.  The Isles ended up with the power play, but couldn’t score and the game ended up fairly quietly three minutes later.

Notes on the game

• With his fourth straight home game with three points, Artemi Panarin joins Andy Bathgate as the only Rangers to accomplish that feat.
• Panarin now has 17 points in his last seven home games.
• This was Panarin’s 20th multi-point game of the season , tied for the most in the NHL.
• In 13 career games against the Islanders Panarin has seven goals and 20 points.
• Marc Staal played 18:07 after missing a game with an injury.  It was also Staal’s 33rd birthday.
• With Staal’s return, Libor Hajek was a healthy scratch along with Phil Di Giuseppe who had been called up from Hartford earlier in the day.
• Georgiev improved his record to 3-0 in starts against the Islanders, he has now stopped 90 of 94 shots in his four games against the Isles.  That’s a .957 save percentage.
• Coach David Quinn gave no indication who would be in net on Thursday, but acknowledged that Georgiev’s performance and record against the Islanders would be taken into consideration.
• Chris Krieder led the team with seven shots.  Panarin was right behind with six.
• Mika Zibanejad was held scoreless at home for the first time since a loss to Montreal on December 6, a span of seven games.
• After getting no game misconducts in the first 43 games of the season, the Rangers now have gotten two in two games.  Jacob Trouba got a game misconduct against St. Louis and Brendan Smith got one tonight.
• With the win, the Rangers move within six points of the last wild card spot, currently occupied by the Philadelphia Flyers.
• Micheal Haley played only 4:15, but he had a significant role in the Rangers’ victory, all related to his fight with Ross Johnston.
• This was only the third time this season the Islanders have allowed six or more goals in a game and it was the most goals scored on them in  road game this season.
• The six goals the Rangers scored are a season high that they have achieved six times.  They have also scored over five goals in each of their last five home games.
• The Rangers actually won the battle of the faceoff dots, winning 23 of 44 draws (52%).
• On Thursday, Adam Fox will play at the Nassau Coliseum, less than nine miles from where he grew upon Long Island.
• Mathew Barzal usually torments the Rangers, but not in this game.  He was scoreless and was a minus four on the night.