The New York Islanders started the season strong yesterday, with a 4-0 win over the New York Rangers.
As the 4-0 score suggests, the game really wasn’t all that close. Perhaps the biggest key to the game was the Islanders completely shutting down the Rangers’ dynamic offensive group. The Rangers’ top forwards had their chances completely limited and while a few of them didn’t have their best game, the Islanders gave them nothing to work with. The Islanders gave up very few chances from good areas and were doing a great job keeping Rangers’ forwards to the outside.
The Islanders’ top line was also very impressive. Mathew Barzal looks good as ever, while Jordan Eberle also had a strong performance and was very involved away from the puck as well, winning puck battles along the boards. Anders Lee kept finding space right in front of the net for tips or rebounds, and it was a bit surprising he wasn’t able to complete the hat trick, based on the chances he was getting. The forward group as a whole played well but the first line had a standout performance.
The defense group had a great game as well and I was impressed by Nick Leddy, who played the most minutes of any Islanders defenseman. Noah Dobson also played big minutes on the power play and looked good in the Rangers end. Andy Greene, Scott Mayfield, Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock were all strong defensively but that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Semyon Varlamov won the goaltending battle against Igor Shesterkin, even if he didn’t face too many quality chances on the Rangers’ 24 shots. Regardless, he did exactly what the Islanders needed him to do.
Overall, it was an impressive win for the Islanders. I’d expect the Rangers to look better tomorrow night after looking flat in game one but if the Islanders are able to contain their offense once again, they’ll have a great chance to start the season with a 2-0 record.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
Do you think Anders Lee was the Islanders' best player yesterday?
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