NEW YORK — It would have been interesting to see these two teams playing in a late-season game if the Islanders had had a better start to the season and weren’t so far out of the playoff race. Maybe the 24-point gap between the teams before they faced off dulled the normal intensity of a Rangers-Islanders game.
The Islanders, still barely alive in the playoff race, kept their recent surge going with a 3-0 win Friday night over the Rangers at Madison Square Garden, their third straight win and their second straight over their rivals, to keep their slim hopes flickering for another day.
For the Rangers, the loss ended a four-game winning streak and kept them from gaining ground on Pittsburgh in the race for second in the Metropolitan Division.
Mathew Barzal had a goal and an assist and Semyon Varlamov made 27 saves to earn the shutout as the Isles won for the 10th time in their last 14 games (10-3-1). They improved to 31-27-9 on the season, while the Rangers fell to 44-20-5.
“The Islanders are playing real good, they're a competitive team. They want to win,’’ Rangers coach Gerard Gallant had said at the morning skate. “They want to get back in the race here, and that's what they're all about. And they're going to work hard, they're gonna compete hard, they got a bunch of games to play, it seems like every second day or more than that they're playing, but that's what they got to do. They had a tough start, and they're playing real good hockey right now.’’
Both teams were playing their third game in four nights, though the Islanders were playing the second night of a back-to-back, while the Rangers had been off on Thursday after flying home from Detroit.
With Ilya Sorokin still not ready to play, Islanders coach Barry Trotz opted to go with Varlamov, who played Thursday in the Isles’ 5-2 win over Columbus. Varlamov didn’t look tired at all, in fact, quite the opposite. He looked energetic and sharp, though the Rangers only landed seven shots on goal in the first period.
The Isles got only five on goal against Igor Shesterkin, and one of those went in, a tap-in by Casey Cizikas at 2:40, off a precise diagonal pass from defenseman Ryan Pulock.
Shesterkin, who looked like a shoo-in for the Vezina Trophy, and a legitimate contender for the Hart Trophy just a couple of weeks ago, hasn’t seemed to be quite as unbelievably good in his last few starts as he was for most of the season. He did still lead the league in save percentage going into Friday’s game, at .936, and was second in goals-against average, with 2.11. But he ’d been pulled twice in his seven starts before Friday, and had allowed 19 goals in those starts, a goals-against average of 3.18 per 60 minutes.
The Islanders made it 2-0 at 4:48 of the second period, when Barzal passed to Matt Martin, who scored his third goal of the season. Meanwhile, the Rangers were having no luck shooting at Varlamov. They outshot the Islanders 19-12 through two periods, but were 0 for 3 on the power play and other than a backhander from in close by Dryden Hunt that Varlamov made a great glove save on, there didn’t seem to be that many difficult shots for the Islanders goalie.
Barzal closed out the scoring when he lifted a backhander over Shesterkin at 2:47 of the third period. Gallant tried to alter things up by changing his lines, moving Filip Chytil to the second line, with Artemi Panarin and Andrew Copp, and the coach pulled Shesterkin with 7:40 to play to get an extra skater. But nothing worked.
