The Rangers literally flipped the script.
After the Rangers knocked out the Islanders two nights earlier, the Rangers turned around and immediately returned it, putting together their own 5-0 exclusion on Saturday night over Barry Trotz and his company in Madison Square Garden.
The Rangers – with a 4-0 loss in which head coach David Quinn questioned their effort – finally showed up for the 2020-21 season. Even with their second-best paid defender, Tony DeAngelo, in street clothes due to an undisciplined unsportsmanlike behavior penalty taken in the first game, the Rangers looked like the team the coaching staff had over their focus in training camp.
The effort was there. The smart passes were there. The Rangers were there.
Behind two goals from Pavel Buchnevich and Artemi Panarin, the Rangers got the boost they needed from their top line 1-1. Alexandar Georgiev recorded his fifth exclusion in his career and scored 23 times in the victory.
The islanders got an early preview when their night would not be a good one, when the opening batsman Semyon Varlamov took a bite in the throat in the warm-up and had to leave the ice and the Russian prodigy Ilya Sorokin without warning in his NHL debut throw.
The Rangers piled on the shots early and took a 2-0 lead in the first period. Mika Zibanejad opened the scoring and stole the shot from Island defender Noah Dobson. He found Buchnevich in the 2-against rush at 2:12.
The islanders’ defense suffered a blow shortly afterwards when Ryan Pulock absorbed a Jacob Trouba shot to the head and immediately headed to the locker room. But Pulock returned at the start of the second period.
Brendan Smith then intercepted a pass and hit a streak of Panarin, which Sorokin cut on the right to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead, at 13:46 and thus their three goals in the first period in the loss of Thursday to put behind the back. .
In the second period, the Islanders were beaten with several penalties, including two on Mathew Barzal. After Scott Mayfield got confused with a linebacker, Buchnevich picked up the kick and tore a hard-nosed shot from the left to make it a 3-0 game early in the second game.
The Phillip Di Giuseppe-Filip Chytil-Kaapo Kakko line generated a turnover later in the period, while Kakko rounded it off for the second time at 15:24 on a one-off finish.
The Islanders played better in the third period, retaining time in the Rangers zone in the final two minutes and sounding two strokes off the posts, but the Rangers dominated throughout.
After Ross Johnston was penalized for fighting Ryan Lindgren and Trouba, Panarin cleared the rubbish on the power play to limit the score.