The Rangers keep rolling.
The Islanders keep roiling.
What else did you expect for this renewal of hostilities on Sunday afternoon at The Garden?
It is rare that a hockey game goes pretty much how you would expect on paper, but both teams played almost exactly to their profiles in this 5-2 Rangers win over the Islanders, the first Battle of New York to commence this season.
The Rangers, with new-look forward lines that featured a separated Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, played excellent special teams and were too loose at five-on-five, ceding possession time and relying too much on Igor Shesterkin against the shorthanded Islanders.
The Islanders, down the entire left-hand side of their blue line along with Mat Barzal and Anthony Duclair, played well below the hashes and had a surprising amount of the puck.
But they could not make the final play to get the puck by Shesterkin — and were typically disastrous on special teams, while the stitches-and-glue defense corps handed the Rangers a free goal at five-on-five to boot.
At this point, you can hear the ever-optimistic Patrick Roy talking about how well the Islanders are playing well before he gets in front of cameras postgame, and in fairness to the head coach, this was a gutty and gritty performance by the severely outmanned club.
But guts, grits and LIRR fare will buy the Islanders a train ride back home from Penn Station and nothing more.
What they are in dire need of are wins and standings points, and of that they got none on Sunday.
The Rangers, now 8-2-1, are in a better position to concern themselves with such matters, and can find plenty about this game to fret about if they so choose.
All the same issues that have been evident throughout this start to the season in which Shesterkin’s brilliance has covered up just about everything else were still there.
It was no solace to the visitors.
Casey Cizikas cut the 2-0 Ranger lead in half by stuffing in Pierre Engvall’s rebound at the crease 4:38 into the second before a lengthy special teams sequence appeared to put the game out of reach for the visitors.
What started with consecutive Ranger penalties that handed the Islanders a 36-second five-on-three ended not only without an Islander goal, but — somehow — in a Rangers five-on-three of their very own. While that came and went, Artemi Panarin converted on the ensuing five-on-four with a seeing-eye shot from the blue line.
Before the period had ended, though, there was a piece of fledgling hope for the Islanders after Brock Nelson tucked Kyle Palmieri’s cross-crease feed into the net with just eight seconds before the second intermission, cutting it to 3-2 and offering some hope to the Islanders.
Hockey is cruel like that, and its cruelty abounded at the four-minute mark of the third when, after a successful Islander penalty kill, Bo Horvat was in for what seemed a sure-thing rush chance at the backdoor, only to be stopped by Shesterkin on the best of his 35 saves.
Just 1:16 later, the Rangers got the sort of bounce that 8-2-1 teams get, when Braden Schneider’s shot popped up off the stick of Adam Edstrom, looped over Ilya Sorokin’s head and crossed the goal line for all of a millisecond — enough to make what was nearly 3-3 into 4-2.
Artemi Panarin added the empty-netter to make it 5-2.
The Rangers had scored the opener amid a messy power play by the Islanders, taking advantage on a blown entry with Kreider and Zibanejad, separated at five-on-five but together on the penalty kill, going up ice for a two-on-one before Zibanejad fed Kreider at the right post for the finish.
The Rangers nearly made it two before the power play — that is, the Islanders’ power play — was over, but Ilya Sorokin slid over to stop Reilly Smith, who was looking at what appeared to be an open net off another shorthanded rush.
That, in a nutshell, was what much of this game was like.
Outside of Samuel Bolduc’s turnover deep in his own zone, which set up a second Ranger goal off the stick of Vincent Trocheck, the Islanders generally had the better of the game at five-on-five and got beaten like a pulp on special teams.
For the Rangers, that is called buying more time to work out their problems.
For the Islanders, it is called being swallowed up by theirs yet again.
