UNIONDALE, N.Y. — It’s an old cliche, but with these two teams, you really can throw the records out when these archrivals get together.
The Islanders were 15 points ahead of the Rangers in the East Division standings, and they almost never lose at home. But the Rangers have a secret weapon in a rarely used, backup goaltender named Alexandar Georgiev who is Kryptonite to the Islanders.
Still smarting after a humbling loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins 24 hours earlier, the Rangers entered Nassau Coliseum for the first time this season on Friday. And with Georgiev in net, playing his first game in three weeks, the Blueshirts got goals from rookies Alexis Lafreniere and K’Andre Miller, one from journeyman Colin Blackwell, and an empty-netter from Mika Zibanejad and knocked off the Islanders, 4-1' in the opener of the teams’ two-game weekend series.
The Rangers (19-16-5) pulled to within five points of the Boston Bruins, who currently hold the fourth and final playoff spot in the East Division. Lafreniere, the No. 1 pick overall in 2020, and Blackwell scored in the second period, and Miller, who leads all rookie defensemen in goals with four, scored at 11:48 of the third, to expand the Rangers’ lead to 3-1. Zibanejad ended the drama with his goal at 18:48.
If there was a downer for the Rangers, it was that Long Island's Adam Fox saw his point-scoring streak end at 12 games.
Rangers coach David Quinn was asked before the game if Thursday’s 5-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins had made it easier for him to get his message across to the team about playing more direct hockey, instead of overpassing.
"Sometimes the greatest teacher is failure,’’ he said. "And sometimes it's the only teacher. And you know we can talk about it, they can do it from time to time, but sometimes you've got to feel pain to your core, and you've got to really suffer before you learn a valuable lesson.
"Everybody talked about how much different we were defensively the first two months of the season,’’ he continued. "And I think we've gotten away from that. I think the more goals we've scored lately, I think we've abandoned our defensive responsibility. And if we're going to make a run at this, we've got to get that back in our game more consistently.’’
After starting Igor Shesterkin for five straight games, Quinn turned to Georgiev who carried a 6-2 record with a 1.80 goals-against average and .941 save percentage against the Islanders into the game.
"As a head coach, I just accept it,’’ Quinn said of Georgiev’s uncanny mastery of the Islanders. "He's a guy that's done well against the Islanders… He stops it,[or] seems to stop it more than he doesn't against the Islanders.’’
Georgiev, who hadn’t played since a 2-1 road loss to the Washington Capitals March 19, was sharp in the first two periods, particularly in the first few minutes of the first, when the Islanders took the first three shots of the game. The Rangers began to take control of the action in the second half of the opening period, and they took the lead in the second, getting on the board when Alexis Lafreniere jammed in a loose puck off a goal mouth scramble at 6:05. The Rangers made it 2-0 when Blackwell scored his third goal in three games at 10:01.
Brock Nelson thought he had gotten the Isles on the board when he deflected a puck in at 14:07 of the period, but the apparent goal was nullified after video replay because of a high stick by Nelson.
Less than a minute later, however, at 14:53, the Islanders were on the board, when 38-year-old defenseman Andy Greene fired a shot through a crowd that got by a screened Georgiev. It was Greene’s first goal of the season.
