This is the kind of showdown for which Hockey New York, New York hungers. It is the Rangers and Islanders competing for a playoff spot in a race that very well may go into the final week of the season.
But don’t blink when these two clubs hook up at the Garden on Thursday. Because this will mark the final meeting between the clubs this season under a broken NHL schedule matrix that minimizes intra-divisional matchups.
Three is all we get this season. Three installments of the Battle of New York. Count ’em: three, which means not one over the nearly four months remaining in the season after the Islanders had taken the first two meetings within two weeks bridging October and November.
But that’s not all (well). For when the Rangers play in New Jersey on Jan. 7, that will mark three-and-out for the 2022-23 Battle of the Hudson in a year in which these two teams are competing for a tournament berth.
The absurdity of the NHL schedule matrix knows no bounds.
So this one on Broadway should be savored. The Rangers are playing their best hockey of the year, 7-1 in their past eight following Tuesday’s 3-2 defeat in Pittsburgh, while receiving their best goaltending of the year from Igor Shesterkin. That is not mere happenstance. The reigning Vezina winner had recorded a .945 save percentage and 1.64 GAA in his past five starts of the seven-game winning streak.
The Islanders, meanwhile, are attempting to stabilize, having gone 1-2-2 in their past five and 3-5-2 in their past 10 while getting mixed results from their guy in nets wearing the “S” under his uniform, Ilya. Sorkin. The 27-year-old had lost five straight starts in which his GAA was 3.46 and his save percentage was .876 before recording a 46-save shutout in Monday’s 1-0 shootout defeat to the Avalanche and Alex Georgiev.
Longtime best buds Shesterkin and Sorokin have gone head-to-head twice, with the Islanders coming out on top in both matchups, once in overtime. Overall, Sorokin is 3-1 against the Blueshirts with a 1.99 GAA and .938 save percentage.
Shesterkin, though, maybe this is tantamount to a Yankees pitcher who can’t beat the Red Sox, is a rather astonishing 1-7-1 in this intramural competition while posting a 3.15 GAA and .884 save percentage.
Clearly, this sort of thing will not do over the long haul.
The improvement in goaltending has keyed this recent reversal of fortune in which the Rangers have begun to resemble last season’s 110-point team. The Rangers have to a large degree cut down their neutral-zone turnovers and ill-advised pinches and decisions high in the offensive zone that led to a bevy of odd-man rushes the other way. The gap has been better and so too the coverage in front of the net. Neither has been perfect, but both have been better.
And so too has the team’s ability to protect leads. When the Islanders struck for three goals in the third period to overcome a 3-1 deficit after 40 minutes at the Garden on Nov. 8, it marked the second of four matches in an 11-game stretch in which the Blueshirts were beaten after holding a two-goal lead. That has not happened since Nov. 28.
But the look the Rangers present as compared to not only last year, but the past few seasons, is markedly different up front. The union between Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad has been cast asunder. Splitting Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin to present a pick-your-poison matchup decision for opposing coaches is a thing of the past, Nos. 10 and 93 partners the last three games.
It’s been six games since Kreider joined Vincent Trocheck on the second/third line. The partnership has paid off, the two straight-ahead forwards together for six goals and two against with a 53.92 xGF in 102:43 since head coach Gerard Gallant made the move.
Jimmy Vesey had been the right wing on the line until midway through the third period in Pittsburgh in which No. 26 took only one shift the final 11:20 while Jonny Brodzinski moved into that spot with four shifts.
You know who else didn’t play down the stretch in addition to Sammy Blais, nailed to the bench for the third period as punishment for his foolish late second-period penalty on which the Penguins scored their second power-play goal within 5:23. to grab a 2-1 lead they later extended to 3-1?
That would have been Vitali Kravtsov, who played two whole shifts in the third period and did not get on the ice for the final 13:22, although No. 74 did at least get 1:37 on the second power-play unit in the first two periods.
Down by two goals in the final 11:20 and by one in the final 9:57, Gallant turned to Brodzinski rather than Kravtsov (or Vesey) for offense. Perhaps the coach was looking for someone harder on the forecheck.
The Rangers currently hold the first wild-card spot with 41 points in 34 games, three points ahead of the second wild-card Islanders, who have played 33 games. The Caps have 38 points in 34 games.
Savor the showdown. There won’t be another one this season.
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