It is only one game. Sure, tell yourself that over and over.
On Tuesday night on Long Island, the New York Rangers yacked up a stinker of a game in a 6-1 loss to the Islanders.
At the same time, the Boston Bruins were beating the Buffalo Sabres, 2-0, to go up by six points in the race for the playoffs.
Perfect time for the Blueshirts.
“Everyone was playing on top of their game, playing for each other, supporting each other,” the Islanders’ Travis Zajac said. “We were aggressive. We played the right way.”
Josh Bailey struck for two goals for the Isles.
“The Rangers have been playing really well and they keep finding a way to climb up the standings, so we wanted to do our best to push them back down,” Bailey said. “All in all, good overall win tonight.”
Semyon Varlamov made 25 saves to get the win.
“We just weren’t playing the way we needed to play if we were going to have a chance tonight,” Rangers head coach David Quinn said. “I thought we were sloppy, I thought we were too high risk, too east-west. We weren’t playing fast enough.”
Whose fault is that?
With the rest of the team taking a night off, Kevin Rooney was the lone goal scorer for the Rangers.
Anthony Beauvillier and Brock Nelson also scored for the Islanders.
“It’s just one of those nights where everything seems to go in, and you just kind of enjoy them and move forward after,” Beauvillier said. “It’s nice, especially when you’ve been struggling a little bit the past couple of games.”
Jordan Eberle and Jean-Gabriel Pageau added late goals to rub salt in the wound.
“It’s definitely good for his confidence,” Pageau said of Beauvillier. “But I thought tonight, his defensive play, that’s what created all the offensive chances after. … When ‘Beau’s’ moving his feet like that he’s a hard player to defend. He’s a smart player. He’s got really good vision and was able to find ‘Bails’ and me today on the ice.”
Igor Shesterkin made 22 saves in the loss.
The Rangers’ Jacob Trouba left the game with an apparent injury.
“It’s one of our leaders and a guy that’s been playing well,” Mike Zibanejad said. “Obviously that shakes things up a little bit, but I think we should do a better job trying to work for him and work together in a situation like that.”
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