The rangers literally turned the script upside down.
After being thrown into the season opener two nights earlier against the Islands, the Rangers returned and immediately turned it around, holding their own 5-0 closing performance over Barry Trotz and company at Madison Square Garden. Saturday night.
The Rangers – following a 4-0 loss in which head coach David Quinn questioned their efforts – have finally appeared for the 2020-21 season. Even with the second highest paid defender, Tony DeAngelo, dressed in the street due to an undisciplined punishment for unsportsmanlike conduct in the first game, the Rangers looked like the team with coaching staff pouring into the training center.
The effort was there. The smart permits were there. The rangers were there.
Behind two goals from Pavel Buchnevich and Artemi Panarin, 1-1 Rangers got the momentum they needed from their top line. Alexandar Georgiev recorded his fifth match of his career, recording 23 saves in victory.
The Islanders received a premature signal that their night will not be a good one when goalkeeper Semyon Varlamov took a punch in the neck in the heat and had to leave the ice, throwing Russian wunderkind Ilya Sorokin in his NHL debut without warning.
The Rangers piled on the shots earlier, jumping to a 2-0 lead in the first period. Mika Zibanejad opened the scoring, stealing the puck from island defender Noah Dobson, he found Buchnevich in the 2-on-1 race at 2:12.
The islanders’ defense hit shortly after Ryan Pulock absorbed a shot by Jacob Trouba in the head and immediately headed for the locker room. But Pulock returned at the beginning of the second period.
Brendan Smith then intercepted a pass and hit Panarin, who snatched Sorokin from the right to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead at 13:46, and effectively put their breakdown in the first period in three goals, in Thursday’s loss, behind them. .
In the second period, the islanders were hit with several penalties, including two on Mathew Barzal. After Scott Mayfield messed with a line player, Buchnevich picked up the puck and snatched a slanted shot from the left to make a 3-0 play early in the second.
The Phillip Di Giuseppe-Filip Chytil-Kaapo Kakko line then forced a turnover later in the period, Kakko finishing it only once at 15:24 of the second.
The Islanders played better in the third period, keeping time in the Rangers area and ringing two shots from the post in the final two minutes, but the Rangers dominated throughout.
After Ross Johnston was penalized for fighting Ryan Lindgren and Trouba, Panarin cleared the trash from the power play to finish the score.