ELMONT, N.Y. — The New York Rangers have already destroyed their own season. On Thursday, they took the New York Islanders down with them.
The two New York teams have not really dignified themselves this year. We’ve catalogued it all, from the Rangers’ 12-4-1 start to GM Chris Drury’s “make me an offer” group text to one of the most miserable stretches of winter hockey the Rangers have played in a couple of decades.
On the other side, the Islanders never got out of the starting gate. Too many injuries, too many blown leads and a Brock Nelson deadline trade brought them low, even though both the Isles and Rangers were still barely alive for a playoff spot entering Thursday’s final meeting between the two.
The 9-2 final is a laughable score, but neither side was having much fun. The Rangers won, by the way, meaning both they and the Islanders have a tragic number of one — if the Canadiens get a single point in their last four games or the Rangers or Islanders lose in any fashion over their final three and four games, it’s finally, mercifully over.
These teams aren’t as hapless or hopeless as they were in the dark days of 1997-2001, when neither team sniffed a playoff spot during a bleak four-year run of complete, cheap disarray on Long Island or spendthrift aimlessness on Broadway. We’re still only four years removed from the Islanders’ back-to-back semifinal runs during the pandemic-era seasons and we’re only 10 months removed from the Rangers reaching a second Eastern Conference final in three years.
This season has felt like a decade-long one in both fan bases. The Rangers’ self-immolation, from Drury to the burning-hot seat of Peter Laviolette to a moribund locker room, has been incredible to witness. They scored 14 goals in two days and somehow managed to play one of their worst games of the season on Wednesday, when the retiring Sam Rosen teamed with old broadcast partner John Davidson to make fans at home happy, at least for a night. As long as they didn’t care too much about what was happening on the ice.
The Islanders might actually still have a chance at the playoffs if not for the Rangers, who completed a four-game season series sweep on Thursday, outscoring the Islanders 23-5 in those games. And it’s not like the other three came during the Rangers’ good start to the season; the previous two losses, 5-1 and 4-0, were after the 4 Nations break in February.
“I don’t know what it is,” K’Andre Miller said of the Rangers’ dominance over the Islanders and lack of the same against just about everyone else. “Rivalry, I guess?”
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) April 11, 2025
The Islanders managed to go 0-11-0 against the Rangers, Red Wings, Ducks and Kraken, four teams who, like them, will be playing Tankathon until the draft lottery. You can’t win anything except a few pink slips by losing to bad teams. To paraphrase a saying: If you can’t recognize the bad team in the room, maybe it’s you.
Ilya Sorokin’s injury suffered Tuesday in Nashville sealed the Isles’ fate, really. Marcus Hogberg was game, but he is a No. 3 goalie who spent the last three years in Sweden for a reason. No matter how severe Sorokin’s injury may or may not be, his missing any time meant a shot at the playoffs was remote. This is a team that works hard but maybe not smart and the Islanders turned pucks over from the start on Thursday and didn’t stop until the Rangers hung a nine-spot on the UBS Arena scoreboard.
Add that to the seven they allowed to the Predators, another lottery-bound team, and that’s 16 goals in two games when the Isles needed to be stingy.
“When you turn pucks over,” Patrick Roy said, “you have no defensive structure.”
The Islanders are game but lacking. The Rangers have shown very little heart or fortitude since November and there was something ruefully funny about them piling up goals on the Isles on Thursday, just 24 hours after they fully dashed their own playoff hopes by letting the even-worse Flyers put up eight.
If, if, if — you don’t want to play that game, but it’s hard not to.
“We play for our families, for our fans and they deserve so much better than we are playing right now,” Igor Shesterkin said after a 44-save performance. “We just need the two points every night.”
Roy felt his team didn’t quit despite a 4-0 deficit after a period. “Teams with no pride don’t have 47 shots (Islanders actually had 46),” he said. “We had 23 chances in the second and third period.”
Of course, if he’d studied some Rangers tape this season, he’d know there are only two teams, the Sharks and Penguins, who give up more high-danger chances a game than the Rangers.
The Rangers have three games left. Once the season’s over, Laviolette may get the gate, leaving Drury to hire a third coach in five years. The GM’s mandate to change his team around feels even more urgent than it did last summer, when he dumped Barclay Goodrow and tried to do the same to Jacob Trouba. Those two are gone and the Rangers are a robust 24-25-6 since Trouba was dealt. Maybe it wasn’t just him.
The Islanders have four games left. Once the season’s over, there may be an appetite to move on from Lou Lamoriello, who started toward what needs to be done by trading Nelson but didn’t go far enough at the deadline. The ultimate decision rests with principal owner Scott Malkin and there’s nothing right now to indicate that Lamoriello is going to be forced out. Same for Roy, who has multiple years left on his deal. Change for the Islanders means the sort of roster makeover Lamoriello has been reluctant to execute in previous offseasons.
These two teams have appeared in four of the last five semifinals/conference finals. The Islanders surged under Lamoriello and Barry Trotz, then sagged; the Rangers were building slowly, then quickly and burned it all down in a manner of months.
However they got to this point, the Rangers and Islanders have one big thing in common: They’re both bad teams. They’re both going to miss the playoffs. They both need more work to return to any sort of contender status, regardless of who’s running the teams or coaching them.
How do they get there? That’s one to dissect through the offseason. And that reckoning time is coming right quick.
(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)