3 storylines for Rangers archrival ahead of 2 crucial head-to-head meetings, NHL trade deadline
The New York Rangers and New York Islanders faced off just once in the first four months of the 2024-25 season. They’re getting ready to play twice within the next week in a pair of high-stakes games for both teams.
Each will enter the game Tuesday at UBS Arena on the outside looking in when it comes to a playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. The Rangers will be playing their third game in four nights after splitting a pair of road contests over the weekend – they were demolished 8-2 by the Sabres in Buffalo before being badly outplayed most of Sunday in Pittsburgh before somehow defeating the Penguins 5-3.
The Islanders playoff hopes looked all but dead in mid-January. But they got back in the hunt with seven straight wins, including victories at Vegas and Tampa Bay, before losing four of their next five – including a 4-3 home loss to the Dallas Stars on Sunday that saw them on the wrong end of a couple of controversial officiating calls.
After Tuesday, each team will play two games before they face off again at Madison Square Garden on March 3.
The Rangers (28-25-4) come to UBS 11th in the Eastern Conference, two points behind the Ottawa Senators for the second wild card in the East. They are three points ahead of the 12th-place Islanders (25-24-7). The difference between them is the Rangers’ 5-2 win at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 3 – reverse the outcome and the Rangers would be looking up at the Isles, instead of the current scenario.
As big as the two games are for the Rangers, they might be even bigger for the Islanders. General manager Lou Lamoriello has one of the League’s oldest rosters, and one that’s been plagued by injuries. All six regular defensemen have missed chunks of time this season. Their most dynamic forward, Mathew Barzal – who has more points against the Rangers (35) than any other team – has been out since Feb. 1 with a left kneecap injury after missing 23 games earlier in the season with an upper-body injury. His absence has been a big blow to an already-ailing offense, and he may not play again this season.
Ex-Rangers forward Anthony Duclair missed two months earlier in the season with a lower-body injury and has yet to find his scoring touch since returning.
Related: Rangers recall Brennan Othmann from AHL Hartford amid Chris Kreider injury concern
Islanders storylines heading into crucial games against Rangers
Here are three storylines as the Islanders prepare for their two meetings with the Rangers:
To buy or to sell
Unlike the Rangers, who’ve made three major trades already this season, the Islanders are heading for the NHL Trade Deadline on March 7 not having made a big deal. Waiver claims for defenseman Tony DeAngelo and Adam Boqvist don’t count, nor does getting D-man Scott Perunovich from the St. Louis Blues for a fifth-round pick.
The Islanders have a number of older players that could bring them younger assets in return as the deadline nears — or they could hang onto their older guys, try to add around the edges and scrape their way into a playoff berth, as they’ve done in each of the past two seasons. The latter is more in keeping with Lamoriello’s past practices.
But two losses to the Rangers could induce Lamoriello to part with players such as center Brock Nelson, a 33-year-old pending unrestricted free agent who’s scored at least 34 goals in each of the past three seasons but has 17 this season. Nelson is No. 1 on many trade boards as the deadline nears.
Nelson’s linemate, 34-year-old pending UFA forward Kyle Palmieri, could also attract interest if the wheels fall off the Islanders’ drive for the playoffs. He has 17 goals and 38 points in 56 games, a 25-goal, 56-point pace over a whole season. Jean-Gabriel Pageau, a fine two-way center who’s 32 and has a year left on his contract, would also draw interest if the Isles make him available.
If the Rangers win twice, the lineup they’ll face when they visit UBS Arena on April 10 could look a lot different.
Getting healthier on blue line
Few teams have been battered more heavily by injuries than the Islanders, especially on defense. The good news for them is that some of their battered bodies on the blue line are starting to get healthy.
The Islanders got top-four D-man Ryan Pulock (upper body) and third-pair regular Scott Mayfield (lower body) back on Sunday. The better news is that their best offensive defenseman, Noah Dobson, who’s missed the past 10 games with a lower-body injury, became eligible to come off long-term injured reserve after their game Sunday. Dobson has just six goals and 24 goals in 46 games after a breakout season in 2023-24 that saw him finish with 10 goals and 70 points.
Dobson has been skating at practice wearing a regular jersey and quarterbacking the second power-play unit, with ex-Rangers defenseman DeAngelo running the No. 1 unit.
One player whose injury absence has surprisingly hurt the Islanders is backup goaltender Marcus Hogberg, who hasn’t played since Jan. 22 because of an upper-body injury. Hogberg had been terrific as Ilya Sorokin’s backup, and his injury, combined with the continued absence of injured veteran Semyon Varlamov, means the organization’s No. 4 goalie, Jakob Skarek, has been elevated to an NHL role, one that he showed he’s not ready for in a 6-3 loss to the Florida Panthers on Feb. 2.
Now or never
There are different kinds of pressure on each team as they prepare to face each other twice in a seven-day span.
For the Islanders, losing twice to the Rangers could all but end their playoff hopes and perhaps send the franchise in a different direction. Lamoriello has done his best to keep the cast that made the NHL final four in 2020 and 2021 together — he traded off his first-round pick in four consecutive seasons to bring in veteran help. That strategy got them within one win of the Stanley Cup Final in 2021, but consecutive first-round blowouts in the 2023 and 2024 playoffs and the imminent possibility of missing the playoffs this season have to have ownership wondering whether it’s time to rebuild – something the 82-year-old Lamoriello has resisted.
The Rangers are one of the biggest disappointments in the NHL this season. They followed up last season’s Presidents’ Trophy with a 12-4-1 start, then were 4-15-0 in their final 19 games of 2024 and have been chasing a playoff berth ever since.
GM Chris Drury unloaded captain Jacob Trouba (to the Anaheim Ducks) and forward Kaapo Kakko, the second player taken in the 2019 NHL Draft (to the Seattle Kraken) in December, both for lower-pair defensemen and draft picks. He then switched gears to bring in J.T. Miller from the Vancouver Canucks at the end of January. They are 4-3-0 since that trade and still outside the top eight in the East.
A couple of losses to the Islanders could trigger another shakeup, either by trade or by recalling young players like Brennan Orthmann (which they did Monday as a precaution should injured veteran Chris Kreider is unable to play) and Brett Berard from AHL Hartford – an approach that is not an option the Islanders, who have perhaps the League’s weakest prospect pool.
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