ELMONT, N.Y. — With his team having won five of its previous six games, and entering Wednesday’s first meeting of the season against a severely-depleted Islanders team in brand new UBS Arena, Rangers coach Gerard Gallant was asked at the morning skate if he thought he would have to remind his team to make sure not to take their opponent lightly.
"I think under normal circumstances you’d say that, but we know how it’s a big rivalry, the Islanders and the Rangers,’’ Gallant said. "And they’re a wounded team, but they’re a dangerous team. They’re a good hockey team. They’re going to work hard, they’re going to compete, they’re going to battle hard.’’
The Islanders, missing seven regulars (COVID protocol), hung in there for a while, but they faded in the third period, allowing goals to Kevin Rooney and Chris Kreider, each of whom scored twice as the Rangers put their rivals away, 4-1.
Kreider’s goals gave him 15 on the season, which pulled him into a three-way tie with Alex Ovechkin and Andrew Mangiapane of Calgary for second-most in the league. Rooney’s goals gave him this season, which is second-most on the Rangers, more than Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin, Adam Fox and Alexis Lafreniere, who all have four.
The victory was the sixth for the Rangers in seven games, and improved their record to 12-4-3. The Islanders (5-9-2) lost their seventh straight and third straight in their new home.
The Rangers’ season-long search for a suitable right wing to play with Zibanejad and Kreider led Gallant to try something new: he moved the red-hot Kaapo Kakko up from the second line to play with the duo, and put fourth-line grinder Dryden Hunt into Kakko’s old spot on the right of the second line, with Artemi Panarin and Ryan Strome.
Through the first 19 games, it’s been a revolving door of wingers for Zibanejad and Kreider. For five years, the two played mostly with Pavel Buchnevich, but Buchnevich was traded to St. Louis over the summer, mostly for salary cap reasons.
The season began with Kreider on the right, and Lafreniere on the left, but when Strome missed four games with COVID-19 last month, Gallant put Panarin in Lafreniere’s spot for a couple games. When Strome returned, the coach shifted Kreider back to the left wing and put newcomer Barclay Goodrow on his and Zibanejad’s right.
When Filip Chytil missed three games with an upper-body injury, Goodrow moved into Chytil’s spot on the third line and rugged winger Sammy Blais played up with Kreider and Zibanejad. But Blais suffered a season-ending knee injury in the game against the Devils Nov. 14, and the carousel started again.
Hunt worked with Kreider and Zibanejad at practice Tuesday, but Gallant hinted he might try something different Wednesday night, and when the team came out for warm-ups, it was Kakko skating with Kreider and Zibanejad. Hunt took Kakko’s spot with Panarin and Strome.
Kreider opened the scoring with his ninth power-play goal of the season, 29 seconds into the second period. Islanders star Mathew Barzal took a hooking penalty six seconds into the period and the Rangers cashed in when Kreider deflected Strome’s pass/shot by Semyon Varlamov. The Rangers made it 2-0 at 14:28 with a goal from the fourth line, when Rooney drove the net and banged in a pass from behind the goal line by Goodrow.
After Andy Andreoff got the Islanders on the board to make it 2-1 at 3:52 of the third period, Rooney scored off a pretty pass from Ryan Reaves 20 seconds later, and then Kreider finished a give-and-go with Zibanejad at 11:02.
