The Rangers haven’t won against the Islanders in two years. Let that sink in.
The Rangers haven’t defeated the Islanders at the Barclays Center ever either.
The Rangers have lost their last eight games against the Islanders, and 12 of their last 13.
That all came into jeopardy when the Isles hosted the Rangers in a snowy Thursday night game.
The Islanders were playing well in the first couple of minutes, controlling the pace of the game, but when Jordan Eberle took a penalty at the 3:49 moment of the first penalty, all that momentum flipped.
That Rangers scored the game’s first goal on the power-play. Two minutes later, the Rangers scored again with a nice shot from Frederick Claesson.
However, the Isles bounced back with a goal from Anthony Beauvilier and another goal from Brock Nelson. Both goals were deflections, and the Islanders rallied to tie the game after digging themselves in a hole.
After blowing a four-minute power-play, the first period ended with the game knotted at two.
When the second period started, the Islanders started to put some pressure on the Rangers. Anthony Beauvilier scored a breakaway goal, but the Rangers tied the game on a shorthanded goal after Mat Barzal broke his stick, and Kevin Hayes rifled one pass Griess to tie the game.
However, the Islanders would not be silenced. Anthony Beauvilier finished off his hat-trick night with a nice deflection from Johnny Boychuk on the power-play. The Islanders then added another power-play goal when Anders Lee tipped a puck past Lundqvist to give the Isles a 5-3 lead at the end of the second.
In the third period, the Islanders took a 6-3 lead of a goal from Uncle Leo Komarov after a nice pass from Valtteri Filppula (three assists, including his 300th assist) and all seemed well.
However, Mat Barzal took a very “John-Tavares like” penalty when he punched the Rangers defender and took a crosschecking penalty which he was benched for, according to Barry Trotz.
The Rangers scored two more goals to make the game 6-5, but Cal Clutterbuck would score an empty-net goal, and gave the team their seventh goal en route to a 7-5 win.
The good:
The third line has nine points tonight combined and played well.
The Bad:
The Islanders gave up 41 shots while only putting up 29 shots. I would like to see the Islanders clear the puck more often, and get some more sustained offensive zone time.

Drive4Five