In a little over a month, the New York Rangers and New York Islanders could meet in the first round of the postseason.
Or maybe not.
With three meetings in the final four weeks of the regular season, how the rivals fare in these games will help to determine whether they convene in the playoffs, and the first of those encounters will occur Sunday afternoon when the Rangers host the Islanders.
The Rangers have 15 games left to see if they can overtake the Boston Bruins for the most points in the Eastern Conference to get a matchup with the second-wild card qualifier. New York has 92 points and two more games to play than the Bruins, who hold a three-point lead.
The Rangers are in this position thanks to a surge that began Jan 27. Starting with a 7-2 win at Ottawa, New York is 14-3-1 in its past 18 contests, including a 10-game winning streak that kicked off the run.
In the Metropolitan Division, the Rangers are four points ahead of the Carolina Hurricanes in the race for first place. After losing three of four following the winning streak, the Rangers won for the fourth time in five games (4-1-0) when they earned a 7-4 win over the host Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday, marking the fourth time they scored at least seven goals this season.
Artemi Panarin collected two goals and three assists in his fifth career five-point game and reached 90 points for the third straight season and fourth time in his career — all with the Rangers. Panarin has eight goals and 19 assists over his past 17 games and also scored the game-winner 10 seconds into overtime when the Rangers rallied for a 6-5 victory over the Islanders in the Stadium Series on Feb. 18 in East Rutherford, N.J.
Against Pittsburgh, Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, Kaapo Kakko, Adam Fox and K’Andre Miller also scored as the Rangers bounced back from blowing a two-goal lead in Thursday’s 6-3 loss at Tampa Bay.
“This is stuff we’ve been doing all year, right?” New York goaltender Jonathan Quick said. “This is nothing new that we did today that we haven’t been doing. These guys, they battle hard.”
The Islanders have 16 games left in their quest for the wild card. Their 73 points are one behind the Detroit Red Wings and five behind Tampa Bay and tied with the Washington Capitals.
After the previous meeting with the Rangers, the Islanders lost two of their next three as part of a stretch of five losses in six games. They won six straight between Feb. 26 and March 10 and are on their third three-game losing streak since Patrick Roy replaced Lane Lambert behind the bench in mid-January.
Following consecutive shutout losses to the Los Angeles Kings and Buffalo Sabres to end a four-game road trip, the Islanders took a 4-3 loss to the visiting Ottawa Senators on Saturday afternoon when Semyon Varlamov was beaten by Brady Tkachuk with 24 seconds left in overtime.
Bo Horvat scored the tying goal on a power play in the final minute of regulation, but the Islanders also blew a pair of one-goal leads.
“It wasn’t enough, that’s for sure,” Roy said. “We just gave that game away, that’s all we did. We are better than this, and we have to be better than this.”
