Islanders vs. Rangers, in a rivalry rarity, feels meaningless at end of lost seasons

Before we get to the bad news, let’s give the early 2020s their due as a good time to be a hockey fan in these parts.

The Islanders and Rangers have combined to reach four conference finals over the past five seasons.

The Rangers won a Vezina Trophy and a Presidents’ Trophy.

The Islanders opened a spiffy new arena that on Sunday hosted a historic hockey event in Alex Ovechkin’s 895th career goal for the visiting Capitals.

Go back even further and only twice since the 2004-05 lockout have both teams not made the playoffs — 2010 and ’18.

Now about that bad news . . .

This season has been bleak, so bleak that Thursday night’s Rangers-Islanders game at UBS Arena was largely meaningless, a word that rarely applies to this rivalry.

The fact the Rangers won in a bizarre blowout, 9-2, did nothing to salvage any good feelings about the preceding six months for the visitors.

It did, however, add one last insult to the Islanders, who went 0-4 this season against the Rangers, getting outscored 23-5.

Asked whether the loss hurt more because it came against the Rangers, captain Anders Lee said, “Of course it does, yeah. We wanted this game. We didn’t play like it.”

Kyle Palmieri said the Islanders were “embarrassed.”

He said there was talk of “pride” between periods after the Rangers took a 4-0 lead into the first intermission.

The Islanders did have 20 shots in the second period and 46 overall. But did Palmieri feel like there was enough pride Thursday night? “No,” he said.

Coach Patrick Roy added to the chaos by inserting emergency backup goalie Tristan Lennox in the third period, then reinserting starter Marcus Hogberg after Lennox allowed a goal on the second shot he faced. Not a good look, as the coach admitted.

Both teams will be eliminated on Friday night if the Canadiens either defeat the Senators or lose in overtime or a shootout.

So the Rangers and Islanders again will not meet in the playoffs, which last happened in 1994. There now are people old enough to run for President of the United States who cannot recall watching such a thing.

Friday marks 50 years since the Islanders’ victory over the Rangers 11 seconds into overtime of the third game of a best-of-three preliminary-round playoff series, a moment that put the still-new franchise on the map.

There was no such excitement this time around, with UBS Arena not even full for the rivalry game.

In comparing the teams’ flops this season, the Rangers are the worse of the two offenders.

The most damning assessment of them came last Saturday from none other than Mark Messier in his role as an ESPN/ABC analyst.

After watching the Devils beat the Rangers, 4-0, Messier said of the team he once captained, “The light is not on, and I don’t know why.”

Last season’s Rangers, who totaled a league-best 114 points, were known for their late rallies and resiliency, with 28 comeback victories in the regular season.

These Rangers have not won three in a row since November, have not overcome a single two-goal deficit and have had too many big-name players underachieve.

GM Chris Drury has not helped by turning the season into a roster chemistry experiment, disrupting a formula that worked last year.

“It wasn't just, we had the same exact team from last year, with maybe a couple minor changes,’’ Mika Zibanejad told Newsday on Wednesday.

Sure, but this is on the players also. Too often they have seemed out of synch and at times even disinterested.

Where do they go from here? Drastic change seems unrealistic given their ages and contracts. But changes there must be, perhaps starting with coach Peter Laviolette, who could be through after two seasons.

As for the Islanders, few expected much of them. Their preseason points over / under was 91 1/2, nine fewer than the Rangers’ estimate.

But other than offloading veteran center Brock Nelson to Colorado, GM Lou Lamoriello let yet another trade deadline come and go without major retooling.

Lamoriello did promise after the trade deadline there finally would be more changes this summer, saying, “We know we have to do more than what just transpired.”

Let’s hope so.

Unlike the more talented Rangers, the Islanders always seemed to try. But the core of the team that went to back-to-back conference finals in 2020 and 2021 has long since passed its expiration date.

Will either team make the playoffs in 2025-26? The Rangers are the better bet.

Remember that they won the Presidents’ Trophy in 1992, missed the playoffs altogether in ’93, then won the Cup in ’94.

So you never know. But refrain from betting the house on either team.

The first half of the 2020s was a hockey blast. The second half could well be a bust.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.