Rangers crumble in lousy opening loss to Islanders

The Rangers started the 2020-21 season sprint Thursday night against the Islanders – and they appear to have shin splints already.

You know, that throbbing pain along the shin that gets worse when there’s a sudden increase in physical activity and muscle strain. The Rangers must have felt that sting when they were shut out 4-0 at Madison Square Garden in their first of eight meetings with the Islanders this season.

The Rangers said they didn’t want to be defined by their abysmal three defeats in the Toronto bubble in the last playoffs, but they look a lot like the same team that was overpowered, overwhelmed and overwhelmed more than five months ago. .

The Islanders, on the other hand, looked like a team poised to continue their run to the conference final last season.

There might have been only three rookies on the ice for the Rangers, but the rookies’ mistakes continued throughout the roster. The Rangers found themselves shorthanded eight times, taking three penalties in the first 20 minutes and falling behind 3-0 early.

This first game is a small sample of what’s to come for the Rangers. But if the first half was any indication of how this young team stacks up against the rest of the East, their sprint just got a lot harder.

Rookie goalie Igor Shesterkin has scored four goals on 33 shots, including a couple of which he would certainly like to come back on his first start of opening night. Semyon Varlamov notched his third shutout in an Islanders jersey and the 28th of his career, dismissing all 24 shots he faced.

The Rangers were on their heels following the puck drop after defenseman Jack Johnson, in his first game in a red and blue jersey, was called upon to hold on to put the Islanders in the lead early.

Brock Nelson started things off for the Isles, burying a slot machine game at 2:33 for the Islanders’ first goal of the season.

A K’Andre Miller roll left Shesterkin dry just over a minute later and Islanders captain Anders Lee converted in a two-on-one run for a 2-0 score. Mathew Barzal later went 3-0 after waltzing around Tony DeAngelo to shoot Shesterkin over the glove.

The rookie’s mistakes continued to happen, as Alexis Lafrenière played the puck while making a change and had the Rangers call too many men on the ice.

The Rangers tilted the ice in the second period and had plenty of time in the attacking zone, but their crowd strategy in the crease failed each time. Lafreniere then committed his second penalty of the night when he was called for a crash at 14:13, which led to a power play goal from Jordan Eberle about 50 seconds later.