If the NHL season were one week long, the Rangers would claim the Presidents’ Trophy as the game’s most exciting team.
Although pundits believed the only direction for them to go was upward, there was still uncertainty with the aggressive moves Chris Drury made to this lineup.
The Blueshirts have won three straight games with a lockdown defensive structure, hard-nosed physicality and balanced scoring across the lineup.
Islanders vs. Rangers prediction, best bet
Eeli Tolvanen has scored in three consecutive games, Gabe Perreault has two goals and an assist during a three-game point streak and Adam Fox has four assists during his own three-game run.
The wealth has even spread to the goaltender, as Igor Shesterkin enters Tuesday’s rivalry tilt against the Islanders on a two-game point streak. In Shesterkin’s three starts, he’s managed to stop 3.8 Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) and earn the NHL’s First Star of the Week.
It also helps that the Rangers have surrendered just 99 shots through four games and rank third in the NHL in both hits (108) and blocked shots (71).
But perhaps the most important trend is that the Rangers have protected third period leads rather than repeatedly exposing them to the high-danger scoring opportunities — a problem that plagued them over the past two seasons. The Rangers have either led or been tied after 11 of their 12 periods.
The Islanders just routed New Jersey 6-0 behind Shesterkin’s long-time buddy Ilya Sorokin, who stopped 37 shots and is the only goaltender to rank ahead of Shesterkin in GSAx (4.5).
Don’t be deceived by the score, however: New Jersey outplayed them up and down the rink at 5-on-5 play, out-chancing them 59-34 and winning the expected-goals battle 3.13 to 2.14, per Natural Stat Trick.
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Peter DeBoer is still settling in behind the bench after getting hired with four games left in the regular season last spring. With newly minted captain Bo Horvat, the Islanders are looking to redefine their identity from a heavy, grinding style to an up-tempo system that keeps opponents out of the middle of the ice.
Although the Islanders swept all four meetings against the Rangers last season, that was against a markedly different Rangers team.
This one has exorcised their demons at MSG thus far.
THE PLAY: Rangers 60 minute moneyline (+110, DraftKings)
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Sean Treppedi handicaps the NFL, NHL, MLB and college football for the New York Post. He primarily focuses on picks that reflect market value while tracking trends to mitigate risk.
