So this could be it for the Rangers going to the Coliseum, one more regular-season game against the Islanders out at that hulking monolith on Hempstead Turnpike.
It’ll be Tuesday night, and the hype and fanfare that hovers over it is not just for the Islanders’ impending move to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center after this season, but because these two generational rivals are fighting for a division crown at the start of March, and likely will continue that fight until the season ends. Even though the postseason is looking more than likely for both clubs, a postseason series is far from a guarantee.
So this game comes with more than just the lingering history, but also the immediate importance of the two points magnifying the scope of the event.
“For me, I just remember those teams that won the Stanley Cup,” was how Rangers coach Alain Vigneault started his remembrance for one of the last standing old-time barns in the sport, opening in 1972 at the beginning of the inaugural season for the Islanders franchise.
“But the team they have right now is the one that I need — and my team needs — to focus on,” Vigneault said. “They’re the best right now in our division. We’ve only beaten them one time this year, and we’re going to focus on [Tuesday] night and see what we can do.��
Vigneault’s team is coming off Sunday night’s 1-0 overtime win over the Blackhawks in Chicago, which followed Wednesday’s 2-1 overtime loss in Detroit. They were two thrilling, playoff-type games — tight-checking but with plenty of scoring chances.
By going 11-2-3 since starting goalie Henrik Lundqvist went down with a sprained blood vessel in his neck, the Rangers (40-17-7) had gotten themselves to within one point of the Islanders atop the Metropolitan Division.
Yet that was before the Islanders (43-21-4) went up to Toronto Monday night and behind their new backup goalie, Michal Neuvirth, beat the sad-sack Leafs 4-3 in overtime to extend the lead to three points.
The Blueshirts still hold four games in hand, and without the benefit of another head-to-head game with the Islanders, the impact this one contest could have on the final postseason seedings is imperative. The Islanders took the first three meetings by a cumulative score of 13-4, and the Rangers got their semblance of revenge with a thrilling 6-5 win at the Coliseum on Feb. 16.
“Their starts have been way better than ours in all four games, there’s no doubt,” Vigneault said. “They’ve jumped on us. Give them full marks. They’re playing extremely well, they’re a good team. It took a real strong effort to beat them the first time. It’s going to take our best effort to give them a good game.”
It’s also going to be a memorable one, no matter the outcome.
“There is a lot of history, and you can feel that when you come into the rink,” Rangers alternate captain Marc Staal said. “A lot of great teams and great players have gone through those [older] buildings, so it’s cool to go in there and be a part of that. That’s the kind of uniqueness of going into those old buildings, that history. The dark lighting, the muskiness, it’s just a different feel. You miss that — or, I wouldn’t say miss it all the time, put it that way. But it definitely makes for a different experience on the ice.”
It’s especially different for the backup goalies of the visiting team, who are forced to sit in the tunnel going back to the opposing dressing room, within ear-splitting distance of the fans.
“At the beginning of [last] year, I’m sitting there in the tunnel, and you get a bigger grasp of how big the rivalry is and how deep the hatred goes between the fans in the stands,” said Cam Talbot, slated to get his 16th start in the past 17 games. “You can kind of hear a lot of screaming up there. It makes for a fun game when you have a atmosphere like that.”
As for the funniest thing he has heard a fan say: “I don’t even know if you can edit it,” Talbot said, “so I’ll just leave it at that.”
And that was before the two teams were battling it out atop the division. Now, the stakes are higher, the history is implicit, and the atmosphere will undoubtedly be electric.
“There are always hard-fought games,” Staal said. “It didn’t matter what place we were in the standings, what position you were in, what time of year, it was always a bigger game when we played them.”