The New York Rangers earned their eighth win of the season in a 5-2 victory over the New York Islanders on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
In a battle of special teams and goaltending, the Rangers bested their local rivals to improve to 8-2-1. This moves the Blueshirts into first place in the Metropolitan Division with 17 points, and third in the overall NHL standings. They trail only the Florida Panthers (9-3-1) and the Winnipeg Jets (11-1-0).
The Rangers posted a much-needed five-goal performance, while Igor Shesterkin was superb between the pipes once again, making 35 saves.
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3 takeaways from Rangers 5-2 win against Islanders
Here are three takeaways from the game Sunday.
1. Special teams come up big
Without a doubt, the Rangers’ special teams ultimately won them this game. Yes, Artemi Panarin scored a huge power-play goal, but the real story here is the performance put on by the penalty killers. First and foremost, the Rangers were a perfect 5-for-5 on the penalty kill. Not only that, but they also scored a short-handed goal courtesy of Chris Kreider, off gorgeous sequence with — who else? — Mika Zibanejad, to open the scoring in the first period.
Kreider now has two shorties this season, and his 11 short-handed goals since the start of the 2021-22 season, most in the NHL in that span.
The Rangers almost had two goals on the same kill, if not for an unreal save by Islanders goalie Ilya Sorokin following the Kreider goal.
Throughout the 10 minutes that the Rangers played shorthanded, they had two scoring chances for, four against, and one high-danger chance for, while only allowing two against, per Natural Stat Trick. Their expected goals for was .41 during this time, while the Islanders was only a .58 during 10 minutes of power play time. To say the penalty-kill unit came up big is an understatement.
2. New-look lines survive first test run
In an effort to spark more offensive production, coach Peter Laviolette threw the lines in a blender just a day before this game. He split up the long-time duo of Kreider and Zibanejad, and broke up the dynamic line of Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, and Alexis Lafreniere. He even split up the third line of Will Cuylle, Filip Chytil, and Kaapo Kakko, who’ve played great together thus far.
How did they respond? Well, that’s up for debate, according to the stats. At 5v5, the Rangers were out-chanced 30-20, and had 10 high-danger chances while allowing 14. So, while they managed to score three goals at even strength including an empty netter, and allowed only two, they still did not necessarily have the edge in play. Hence why special teams and goaltending earned this victory. Nonetheless, the new lines looked okay in their first test run, so it will be interesting to see if they remain the same going forward.
3. Mika Zibanejad slaps back with 3-point game
Laviolette claimed that the lineup changes were not directly an attempt to get Zibanejad going in terms of offense, but it may have turned out that way. Zibanejad had three assists and three shots on goal against the Islanders. He was on the ice for 10 chances for and 10 against, and was on ice when the Rangers generated six high-danger chances for, four against.
That’s a pretty good response against the noise from his critics that turned up against him recently.
While it would be nice for him to find the back of the net, he is getting looks. Zibanejad finished the game with an individual expected goals for of 1.73, second-highest on the team. Though he only has two goals so far this season, Zibanejad does have 10 points in 11 games, a solid pace to start the season. Consistency’s been missing from his game. So, let’s see what he does Friday against the Buffalo Sabres.
