4-1-0<\/a>) spoiled Islanders goaltender Semyon Varlamov\u2019s night \u2014 the veteran returning from a double partial knee replacement to appear in his first game in 676 days dating back to Nov. 29, 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\nVarlamov made 19 saves, but was outdueled by Rangers star Igor Shesterkin, who turned away 17 of 19 Islanders shots.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Bjorkstrand beat Varlamov on the Blueshirts\u2019 first shot of the game 6:40 into a first period that had largely been controlled by the Islanders (1-2-0). But a one-timed slapshot from the right circle beat Varlamov over his left shoulder on the near side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lafreniere doubled the Rangers\u2019 lead 25 seconds into the second period when he came down the left wing alone and sniped a wrister over the glove of Varlamov, who appeared to get a piece of it, but not enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Islanders found a response in rapid fashion, with Bo Horvat and Cal Ritchie scoring just 1:56 apart to tie it up. On the power play, the new Islanders\u2019 captain one-timed a feed from Matias Maccelli, who was behind the net, home for his second goal of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brayden Schenn\u2019s hard work set the stage for the Islanders\u2019 equalizer, taking on two Rangers defenders in the left corner, winning the puck, and centering it for Ritchie alone in front of goal. With no pressure around him, Ritchie held onto the puck and took off to his right, outwaiting a sprawled-out Shesterkin and slotting the puck around his pads with 4:52 gone in the second.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bjorkstrand regained the lead for the Rangers with 2:53 left in the frame when he was found by Gabe Perrault in the left circle. His wrist shot gave Varlamov no chance.\n<\/p>\n
Shesterkin did get bailed out by three posts, two from Schaefer in the opening two periods, and one in the third when Ondrej Palat unexpectedly split the Rangers\u2019 defense. It was as close as the Islanders would come to an equalizer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lafreniere added a pair of empty-netters in the final two minutes.\n<\/p>\n
For more on the Islanders and Rangers, visit AMNY.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct 6, 2026; New York, New York, USA; New York Rangers left wing Alexis Lafreniere (13) circles back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[27976,9,24,55,54,539,56,27940,319],"class_list":["post-366636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-islanders","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-nhl","tag-ny","tag-rangers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366636","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=366636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Alexis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2026-10-07T024120Z_1708410359_MT1USATODAY30016760_RTRMADP_3_NHL-NEW-YORK-ISLANDERS-AT-NEW-YORK-RANGE.jpeg\" "\\"Lafreniere")
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