It still feels like there’s not a whole lot to play for, but a win is a win.
The New York Rangers defeated the New York Islanders 9-2 on Thursday night in dominating fashion.
Peter Laviolette went into this game making some major line changes. On top of the moves to scratch Gabe Perreault and Brennan Othmann, he also tweaked his offensive lines.
One line he did not touch was that of Will Cuylle, J.T. Miller, and Mika Zibanejad who spearheaded the Rangers’ monster first period.
Zibanejad opened up the scoring less than three minutes into the contest while Cuylle followed that up with a goal of his own.
Later in the period, Vincent Trocheck worked his magic. First, Trocheck scored on the ice-cold Rangers power play and quickly found Artemi Panarin for a goal in the dying seconds of the first period on a two-on-one chance.
After 20 minutes of play, the Rangers led 4-0, essentially icing the game after one period.
The Rangers ultimately scored a season-high nine goals in the game including two from Brett Berard in the final frame.
Going into this matchup, the Rangers were coming off of a gut-wrenching 8-5 loss to the Flyers, making their chances to make the playoffs nearly impossible.
Technically if the Rangers win out they can still inch their way into the playoffs with help from other teams as well. They could only control what they could control and that was the Blueshirts’ mindset.
“I guess we are still in it,” Berard said. “We can’t hurt ourselves by losing points now. Every game is huge, especially now and it has been.To get a commanding win like that, it’s a testament to everybody, coming ready to play. It’s easy to get down after last night, but it was a great team effort.”
Peter Laviolette felt that every line brought a different energy, helping propel them to victory.
“I thought there were some good things that went on with every line,” Laviolette said. “If you just look at the zone time and some of the chances we were able to generate, especially at the start of the game. Just were able to get behind them and play a simple game, but definitely contributions from everybody.”
This performance came too little too late.
It feels like the boy who cried wolf. The Rangers have gotten everyone’s hopes up throughout the entirety of the season and now they come out with this dominant outing when the season is practically already over.
The postgame press conference still felt awkward despite this victory. There’s just not much to ask from a reporter's standpoint and not much to say from the player’s and Laviolette’s standpoint.
There’s just this weird energy around the team right now with the inevitable hanging over everyone’s head.
The Rangers will be back in action on Saturday afternoon against the Carolina Hurricanes.
