NEW YORK — Following Thursday night’s embarrassing no-show loss to the rival Islanders at Madison Square Garden in the season opener for both teams, Rangers coach David Quinn made a slew of changes for Saturday’s do-over.
"We can't let one game turn into two bad ones,’’ Quinn said before the Rangers hosted the Islanders again Saturday. "We can't let it linger. Nobody felt good about the other night.’’
Perhaps the most impactful change Quinn made was his starting goaltender. Igor Shesterkin got the assignment opening night, but Alexandar Georgiev practically owns the Islanders, with a 5-2 record, .934 save percentage and 2.09 goals-against average against them in his career. And Georgiev was certainly sharp Saturday in making 23 saves as the Rangers bounced back with a 5-0 win to split the first two games against the Islanders.
Georgiev, who hadn’t played a game since March 11, which was the Rangers’ last game before the NHL shut down because of the coronavirus, is supposed to play second fiddle to Shesterkin, whose play last season after coming up from the minors in January was good enough to make the Rangers move on from franchise icon Henrik Lundqvist. But Quinn has said he expects to play both of his goaltenders.
Offensively, Pavel Buchnevich — who Quinn had gushed over during training camp — had two goals and an assist, and Artemi Panarin scored a pair. Kaapo Kakko also scored for the Blueshirts.
Starting Georgiev wasn’t the most radical change Quinn made. That would be the decision to scratch defenseman Tony DeAngelo, who took two penalties in the third period Thursday that Quinn apparently couldn’t tolerate. With the Rangers trailing 4-0 DeAngelo was called for a holding penalty early in the period, and he compounded that by slamming the penalty box door closed, in frustration. That got him an additional unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, which left the Rangers shorthanded for four straight minutes.
Quinn banished DeAngelo from practice Friday, assigning him to work with the taxi squad, rather than the main roster. The coach said he spoke at length to DeAngelo, and on Saturday, he promised the 25-year-old DeAngelo will "be back in the lineup soon.’’
It may not necessarily be the next game, though, because Brendan Smith, who took DeAngelo’s spot in the lineup, played well. Smith even got a pretty assist when he intercepted Scott Mayfield’s pass and whipped a home run breakout pass to Panarin, who went top shelf on Ilya Sorokin to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead at 13:46 of the first period.
With Smith in the lineup, Quinn changed all his defense pairs, including splitting up his most reliable twosome, Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren. Lindgren was partnered with Jacob Trouba, while Trouba’s partner on Thursday, rookie K’Andre Miller, was paired with Smith. That left Fox to partner up with Jack Johnson, who had played with DeAngelo on Thursday.
It all looked good Saturday, so the coach may stay with this look for now. Meanwhile, he made some changes up front, too. He was forced to bring in forward Phillip DiGiuseppe to replace Kevin Rooney, who left Thursday’s game in the third period following a heavy collision with the Islanders’ Ross Johnston. And while he was at it, Quinn moved some pieces around.
The most notable of the changes at forward was dropping Kakko from the second line, with Panarin and Ryan Strome, in favor of No. 1 pick Alexis Lafreniere, who had started at left wing on the third line on Thursday. Kakko, who played with those two Thursday, dropped down to a line with Filip Chytil and DiGiuseppe, both of whom earned assists on his goal, a one-timer from the right circle that made it 4-0 at 15:24 of the second period.
