NEW YORK — Kaapo Kakko desperately needed to redeem himself. And with 2:47 remaining in regulation against the archrival Islanders Thursday at Madison Square Garden, he did.
The 21-year-old Finn had gifted the Rangers a goal in the second period that briefly earned him a mini-benching. But with the game tied late, and the Rangers having just failed to score on yet another power play, Kakko drove the net and banged in a pass from K’Andre Miller to put the Rangers ahead and on their way to a 5-3 win in their final game before the NHL’s three-day Christmas break.
Vincent Trocheck’s empty-net goal with 1:32 remaining sealed the result for the Rangers, who finished the pre-Christmas portion of their schedule with a record of 19-11-5. Though their seven-game win streak had ended Tuesday with a loss to the Penguins in Pittsburgh, the Rangers finished 8-1 in their last nine games before the break. They return to action on Tuesday, Dec. 27, at the Garden, against Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.
At the Rangers’ morning skate, Rangers coach Gerard Gallant was asked about the challenge of facing the Islanders.
“Well, it's time to beat them,’’ he said. “I mean, we played pretty decent games against them. But this is our last time we're going to play them this year, and they're a good team. They play the same game every night, pretty consistent for the most part, and great goaltending. So it's a big game in the standings tonight for both teams.’’
The Rangers trailed, 3-2 at the start of the third period, but Barclay Goodrow, who’d started the game on the top line, with Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad, before being dropped to the fourth line, as Vitali Kravtsov moved up to take his spot, tied the game when he deflected Julien Gauthier’s shot and got it by Islander goalie Ilya Sorokin at 3:00 of the third.
The Rangers had a chance to go ahead midway through the period, when the Isles’ Alex Romanov was sent off for hooking Zibanejad at 8:08, but Zibanejad’s one-timer rang loudly off the post and Sorokin made three saves to keep the Rangers off the board. The Rangers got one more power play — they got six in all — just before Kakko’s goal won it.
The Islanders scored first, when Anders Lee threw a puck to the crease from behind the goal line that bounced off the skate of Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren and got past Igor Shesterkin at 12:48 of the first period. But the Rangers got the goal back when the Islanders took consecutive penalties late in the period, the first by Scott Mayfield for holding Panarin at 14:16 and the second at 15:32, when Noah Dobson shot the puck over the glass.
That gave the Rangers a five-on-three skating advantage for 44 seconds, and while they didn’t score with the two-man advantage, Panarin did tie the game up on the second of the two power plays, blasting home a one-timer off a pass from Zibanejad at 17:14.
The Islanders took the lead, 2-1, early in the second period, after a terrible turnover by Kakko. Kakko was skating around the Islanders’ zone, possessing the puck and weaving his way through traffic, but he didn’t pass it and he didn’t shoot it, and eventually, the Isles’ Josh Bailey stripped him of it and got the puck to Mathew Barzal, who sped up the ice on a breakaway and scored at 2:39.
Gauthier, back in the lineup after being scratched the last two games, tied it at 5:30, taking a headman pass from Goodrow, driving to the net, and slipping a backhander underneath Ilya Sorokin.
But the Isles re-took the lead on a goal by Alexander Romanov, who fired a left point shot through a crowd of bodies and beat Shesterkin at 8:45 of the period.
