Having just passed the midpoint of the regular season, the Capitals have distanced themselves atop the Metropolitan Division to the point the Rangers and Islanders can hardly feel the waves of their wake from 15 points back in second place.
So what remains for these now-interborough rivals, tied with 51 points apiece going into the second meeting of the season at the Islanders’ new Brooklyn home at Barclays Center on Thursday night, is a chance to separate themselves from the large grouping of teams in the Eastern Conference that find themselves all fighting for the remaining playoff spots.
“You look at the standings right now, it’s going to be a really tight race,” Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist said after Wednesday’s practice, his team only four points clear of ninth place, while there are five teams tied for or within four points of eighth.
“Probably [will] be a lot of teams fighting for the last spot on the last game of the season. Just have to do whatever you can right now to leave everything out there for every game. It might be the difference, that extra point, you never know how close it’ll be in the end.”
The Rangers (23-14-5) do have one game in hand on the Islanders (23-15-5), but that’s hardly of the utmost importance at this juncture. Paramount is the form in which each of these teams finds their game, and the Blueshirts are just about finding their groove with a recent run of 4-2-1 that ended a dreadful December.
“I think the last six, seven games, we’re getting back to the way we have to play to have success,” Lundqvist said. “I think that gives us confidence to know that we’re getting closer and closer to where we need to be.”
Lundqvist and his mates came into this season with aspirations of lifting the Stanley Cup, and following a 16-3-2 start, they looked as if they would challenge for a second consecutive Presidents’ Trophy. But now, they haven’t won back-to-back games since Nov. 21-23, just before that big 5-1 loss to the then-league-leading Canadiens on the night before Thanksgiving that was the beginning of their downturn. (Ironically enough, it was just before the beginning of the downturn for free-falling Montreal.)
Meanwhile, the Islanders are at the start of almost a month they’ll have to play without two of their best defensemen, Travis Hamonic (lower body) and Johnny Boychuk (upper body) both sidelined with injuries. With all the growth expected of captain John Tavares and his young and talented team, the Islanders couldn’t take advantage of the Rangers’ slide, instead losing to the likes of the Avalanche, Coyotes, Maple Leafs and Flyers over the past month to keep from rising.
“They’re one of the best four-line teams in the league,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “They’re a big challenge for us and we’re going to have to be ready for it.”
One advantage for Vigneault’s group, learned from these teams’ first meeting in Brooklyn, a 2-1 Isles shootout win on Dec. 2, is that Barclays Center has inherited Nassau Coliseum’s recent penchant for housing Rangers’ fans. The Islanders still are 25th in the league in drawing 82.5 percent capacity every night — and second-to-last with an average crowd of 13,038 — but rest assured it will be a sellout Thursday. And half of them will be rooting for the road team.
“For the people that go around on the road, the cult of the New York Rangers, anywhere we go, it’s phenomenal,” Vigneault said. “And I come from two great organizations, Montreal and Vancouver, where we had an unreal following. But it is nothing compared to the New York Rangers’ fans.”
It’s likely to be even more ratcheted up with the points now being at a premium, and playoff spots hardly a given for either team.
“When you turn the corner and you start getting close to February, I think the intensity goes up,” Lundqvist said. “The importance of every game and every point is more clear to every player.”