Key takeaways after Rangers’ home woes continue with 5-0 loss to Islanders
The New York Rangers celebrated some of their most famous moments and saves on “Miles and Milestones Night” – then went out and made the wrong kind of history against the New York Islanders.
The Rangers fell to 0-6-1 at Madison Square Garden when they were shut out for the fifth time at home, losing 5-0 to their archrivals. The Isles got two goals from Bo Horvat and a 33-save performance by Ilya Sorokin, who outplayed his friend and rival, Igor Shesterkin, with his best game of the season.
The Blueshirts (7-7-2) started fast but couldn’t beat Sorokin early, paid dearly for a couple of defensive lapses that turned into goals in the first period, lost the special-teams battle and played most of the last two periods in front of a sellout crowd whose silence was interrupted only by spurts of booing and some “Let’s Go Islanders” chants.
Even worse was having a night like this against their biggest rival, a team they swept last season and outscored 23-5 in the four wins. Shesterkin had beaten the Islanders seven straight times, and the visitors had dropped their last five visits to MSG.
After the cheers for players like Pete Stemkowski, Adam Graves and Mike Richter had died down, the Rangers started the game by picking up where they left off in their 4-1 win at Detroit on Friday night. The Blueshirts had two Grade A chances less than 15 seconds into the game, but Sorokin stopped Mika Zibanejad’s shot and foiled Artemi Panarin at the left post on the rebound.
Zibanejad beat Sorokin at 7:30 but rang the crossbar, and the Isles goaltender denied Will Cuylle through traffic in front soon after.
“I thought we had a great start,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “The first 10-12 minutes we were playing the kind of game we wanted to play.”
But the save on Cuylle wound up leading to the game’s first goal. The Islanders broke the puck out quickly and ended up with a 2-on-1 rush. Emil Heineman put a pass right on Horvat’s stick, and Horvat beat Shesterkin at 10:29 for his 10th of the season and a 1-0 lead.
That goal energized the Islanders, who began to dominate play. They held the Rangers shotless for the last nine minutes of the period – and made it 2-0 with 33 seconds left when Jonathan Drouin capitalized on another 2-on-1. Ex-Ranger Anthony Duclair’s saucer pass put Drouin in alone, and he went forehand-to-backhand before beating Shesterkin between the legs for his first goal since opening night.
“We beat ourselves in a lot of ways,” Sullivan said of the defensive breakdowns. “You can’t give up the type of 2-on-1s we did and expect success.”
The home side generated literally nothing at even strength in the second period – 5-on-5 scoring chances were 6-0 for the Isles; high-danger chances were 3-0, according to Natural Stat Trick. The Blueshirts’ only flurry came after ex-Rangers defenseman Tony DeAngelo was called for holding at 13:16. Zibanejad had two point-blank shots one-timers the slot, but Sorokin took both of them in the chest.
The Isles got their first power play with 3:06 left in the period when Conor Sheary was called for hooking rookie defenseman Mathew Schaefer, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft. The visitors were in a 2-for-26 slump with the extra man before Horvat got his second of the night at 18:42, beating Shesterkin after a terrific pass from Drouin.
The Rangers had only occasional chances in the third period until Sullivan pulled Shesterkin with five minutes remaining. They bombarded Sorokin with six shots on goal in less than three minutes but couldn’t score. Jean-Gabriel Pageau put the game away by hitting the empty net with 2:01 left, then set up Anders Lee for a rub-it-in goal with 30 seconds left.
The struggling Nashville Predators come to the Garden on Monday night. It will be interesting to see what Sullivan can come up with to turn around a team that can’t find the net in its own building.
Key takeaways after Rangers lose again at home, 5-0 to Islanders
1. Home horrors continue
The 0-6-1 start at the Garden is now officially the worst in franchise history. The 1943-44 team, which had been decimated by World War II and went on to go 6-39 with five ties, won its seventh home game after losing the first five and tying the sixth.
The seven-game losing streak at MSG matches the team record set from Oct. 20-Nov. 14, 1976, and matched when they lost the last seven games (one in overtime) at the Garden in 1992-93.
“Our group is a proud group,” Sullivan said. “Yeah, it wears on you. We haven’t won a game at home. If it doesn’t wear on you, there’s something wrong.”
This looked like the perfect setup for ending the victory drought at home. The Islanders have struggled to keep the puck out of their net all season, haven’t done well on either of their special teams and aren’t getting the kind of goaltending from Sorokin that they’ll need to get back into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Instead, the night was eerily similar to Tuesday’s 3-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes – a good start that doesn’t produce any goals, a couple of defensive mistakes that end up in their net — and another defeat.
“It’s frustrating,” captain JT Miller said. “Disappointing we can’t put together… we’ve had some good nights at home and some that weren’t. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot today.”
2. Tough night for the big guns
The turning point of the game might well have come when Zibanejad beat Sorokin but rang the crossbar while the game was still scoreless. He also had two great chances during the Blueshirts’ second power play, only to hit Sorokin in the breadbasket each time.
Or maybe it came on the game’s first shift, when Sorokin got to the left post and foiled Panarin, who was wide-open after the Isles’ goaltender stopped Zibanejad’s shot. Or it could have been when Sorokin stopped Cuylle on the play that led to the game’s first goal.
The three combined for 15 shots on goal (six for Zibanejad, five for Panarin, four for Cuylle) – nearly half of the team total. But the result was the same as it’s been in five of the Rangers’ seven home games – a big zero on the scoreboard.
3. A non-contact night
Islanders-Rangers games are usually full of physicality, with hits galore, a few scrums and the occasional fight. That was not the case Saturday.
Garden fans expected the Rangers to do some banging in an effort to slow down Schaefer, and Miller did welcome the rookie defenseman to MSG with a first-period belt into the boards, one of the four first-period hits he was credited with and half of the team total.
But the home side had just six hits over the final 40 minutes, one by Miller. They ended up being outhit 18-14 by the Isles, who aren’t close to being the kind of physical team they were in the early 2020s. Miller’s hit on Schaefer was the only one against the first player taken in the 2025 NHL Draft, who had three shots on goal, a takeaway, a blocked shot – and few if any bruises from contact with a Ranger.
