ELMONT, NY — Ondrej Palat scored in his team debut, and the New York Islanders ran roughshod over the crosstown rival Rangers 5-2 on Wednesday night at UBS Arena.
Palat also recorded an assist just over 24 hours after being acquired from the New Jersey Devils for Max Tysplakov. Simon Holmstrom posted a goal and two assists, and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored his third goal in the last two games in a two-point effort.
“It was a great game by the whole team,” Palat said. “Even if I didn’t score, I thought the whole team played well. A great game against the Rangers.”
The Islanders (29-19-5, 63 points) have won two straight games and are now 3-0-0 against the Rangers this season. The two teams face each other again on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden.
The Blueshirts’ (22-27-6) demise continues in spectacular fashion, as they have now lost 12 of their last 15 games. Sitting at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, their fire sale has officially begun. They dealt defenseman Carson Soucy to the Islanders on Monday — the veteran made his team debut alongside Palat on Wednesday night — and held superstar winger Artemi Panarin out for roster management purposes as a trade nears.
Palat was working with the top power-play unit when he opened the scoring with 5:01 remaining in the first period. The winger, set up between the face-off circles, one-timed a Holmstrom pass from the left boards into the roof of the net.
“It’s nice to see Ondrej get that goal on the power play,” head coach Patrick Roy said. “That was a nice shot by him.”
“For a first game, I thought we played well,” Palat added. “We kept it simple and we were able to score.”
Just 1:11 after providing the helper, Holmstrom picked up his 13th goal of the season with an easy tap-in at the left post off a brilliant feed from the right point by defenseman Tony DeAngelo.
“That pass was unreal,” Holmstrom said. “I saw the puck coming and just put my stick down, and it ended up in the net. It’s not very hard to score those.”
Mika Zibanejad got one back for the Rangers on the power play with 1:56 left in the first, slotting a one-timer from J.T. Miller from a tight angle at Islanders goalie David Rittich’s left post.
The Islanders pulled off the quick strike again in the second period, with a pair of goals in just 46 seconds.
At the tail-end of a 5-on-3, which already saw Matt Rempe leave the box to make it a single-man-advantage for the Islanders, some precision passing telegraphed the puck from DeAngelo to Bo Horvat, to Holmstrom in the right circle, to Barzal cross-ice in the left. The star forward was able to sneak a tight-angled one-timer past the outstretched skate of goaltender Spencer Martin at the 13:12 mark.
“Bo did a really good job of finding an open spot in the middle there and gave it to me,” Holmstrom said of the play. “I saw Barzy was pretty open there, and I just tried to give it to him.
Pageau then stuffed home a loose puck off a Marc Gatcomb shot under the gear of Martin seconds later, at the 13:59 mark, to make it a 4-1 game.
After Taylor Raddysh snuck the Rangers’ second past Rittich, Emil Heineman restored the Islanders’ three-goal advantage with a wicked one-timer from the edge of the left circle with 46.6 seconds left in the second for his 15th goal of the season.
