The Battle of New York wasn\u2019t much of a battle at all last season, but the Rangers ensured the rivalry was restored to its proper glory Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
After going 0-4 against the Islanders in 2025-26, with their last victory coming April 10, 2025 \u2014 two seasons ago \u2014 the Blueshirts renewed the intrastate competition with a 5-2 win to continue an encouraging start to the campaign with their fourth win in a row and third straight at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just coming out with great energy,\u201d head coach Mike Sullivan said. \u201cI think they\u2019re buying in. They\u2019re having fun. They\u2019re competing hard, and they\u2019re having success. It\u2019s fun to watch them. I think their first periods, they\u2019ve brought great energy, the right intentions. I think our third periods have been terrific, just as far as our checking game. We\u2019re not sitting back trying to defend leads. We\u2019re playing hard, playing on our toes, but we\u2019re doing it responsibly. I think that\u2019s a great sign for us the way we\u2019re competing in the third periods as well. I\u2019m proud of the guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the stretch of games, we just went through a tough stretch. Fives games in eight nights against some pretty good teams. These guys, they\u2019re competing hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the face of an unexpected demotion to the fourth line the past two games, Oliver Bjorkstrand led the Rangers with two key goals, including the game-winner. Tye Kartye replaced Bjorkstrand on the left wing of the second unit after Sullivan liked what he saw from the tweak in Detroit last week.<\/p>\n
Bjorkstrand still managed to make an impact and score go-ahead goals at both 5-on-5 and on the power play.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I mean, you just wanna do your best when you\u2019re out there,\u201d the 31-year-old Bjorkstrand said. \u201cWhatever minutes, line you\u2019re in, you gotta step up and do your part.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Alexis Lafreni\u00e8re, however, who provided the Rangers with significant insurance. He scored two empty-net goals after recording a second-period score for his third career hat trick.<\/p>\n
The NHL promoted that Tuesday night was the first Rangers-Islanders game to feature a teenage defenseman on both teams. The Islanders\u2019 first-overall pick in 2025, Matthew Schaefer, and the Rangers\u2019 fifth-overall pick Alberts Smits happen to also be the two youngest defensemen in the entire league.<\/p>\n
Oliver Bjorkstrand (left) scores a second period goal, his second of the game, in the Rangers\u2019 5-2 win over the rival Islanders on Oct. 6, 2026 at Madison Square Garden. Robert Sabo for New York Post<\/p>\n
But the newest rookie in the Rangers lineup was Cole Beaudoin, who was recalled earlier in the day to make his NHL debut after Joe Veleno was placed on injured reserve with a lower-body injury.<\/p>\n
Centering the fourth line between Jaroslav Chmelar and Bjorkstrand, Beaudoin logged 9:57 of ice time and won six of 11 faceoffs.<\/p>\n
Alexis Lafreniere (right) celebates with teammate Gabe Perreault (left) after scoring a second period goal, the first of his three goals in the Rangers\u2019 win over the rival Islanders. Robert Sabo for New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cI found out today, so it was kind of a quick turnaround,\u201d said Beaudoin, who had a ton of family in the stands. \u201cI\u2019d do anything to play for this team. Just super excited to play my first game with this group of guys. They made it super special and super easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rangers have been ready to start games, a bare minimum requirement the team struggled mightily with last season. In fact, through the first five contests of the season, the Rangers haven\u2019t surrendered a single first-period score.<\/p>\n
Tuesday, the Rangers broke through in the first 20 minutes, when Bjorkstrand blasted a loose puck right past Islanders goalie Semyon Varlamov from the right circle for his first goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Islanders veteran Casey Cizikas (left) scuffles with Alberts Smits during their loss to the Rangers. Robert Sabo for New York Post<\/p>\n
The home team looked to be in complete control after Lafreni\u00e8re made it a 2-0 game off a snipe while skating down the left side.<\/p>\n
It took the Islanders just under two minutes, however, to storm back into it. With Eeli Tolvanen in the box for hooking, Isles captain Bo Horvat buried a backdoor feed from Mattias Maccelli on the power play. Calum Ritchie was then left unattended as he crashed the net, waited out Igor Shesterkin and deposited the puck around the Rangers goalie to even the score.<\/p>\n
But a power-play score from Bjorkstrand regained the lead for the Rangers later in the middle frame.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we\u2019re on the same page,\u201d Mika Zibanejad said. \u201cEven a night like tonight, I felt like in the second they got their goals and a little bit of momentum. I felt like we didn\u2019t just collapse like we\u2019ve maybe done in the past, and we try to get out of it in a different way. We just work ourselves back into it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Battle of New York wasn\u2019t much of a battle at all last season, but the Rangers ensured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21088,3518,9,11,6821,10,541,539,319],"class_list":["post-366576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-alexis-lafreniere","tag-igor-shesterkin","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}