The Rangers had tunnel vision approaching the holiday break and it paid off. 

Fueled by the prospect of salvaging their season, as well as winning at least the last of the three games they’re scheduled to play against the Islanders, the Rangers saved their best for the last regular-season meeting with their cross-state foes. Both goals were accomplished in a 5-3 win Thursday night at Madison Square Garden that sent the Rangers into the four-day layoff on a high note as winners of eight of their last nine games. 

“Ten games ago, the season wasn’t looking great,” said Barclay Goodrow, who scored the first of the Rangers’ three third-period goals and assisted on Vincent Trocheck’s empty-netter. “You win eight of nine and we’ve put ourselves in a good position. We’re right in the mix. A 10-game stretch can do a lot. We know how quickly things can go the other way. Obviously, it’s a big confidence boost going on this run. I think we’re playing good hockey, we just want to keep that up.” 

If the NHL had to limit hockey fans to just three regular-season games featuring one of the better rivalries in the league, the Rangers and Islanders at least made their last meeting one to remember. 

Not only did the Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin and the Islanders’ Ilya Sorokin square off in goal, but both teams skated hard, scored often and played with the kind of intensity that a matchup with playoff implications deserved. The score was tied three times. Sixteen penalty minutes were served. And there was no shortage of action in one of the better Battles of New York in recent memory. 

Kaapo Kakko scored the game-winner at 17:13 of the third period, when the Finnish winger buried a centering feed from K’Andre Miller. The goal may have won the Rangers the game — and kept them in the thick of the Metropolitan Division standings, tied with the Penguins at 43 points — but it was the only way that Kakko felt he could compensate for his costly turnover earlier in the game. 

“I was thinking something like that,” Kakko said. “After their second goal, obviously that was my fault. I think that happens [to] everyone. That’s the way you need to think after that. It was nice to score a goal like that in the end, especially after a play like that.” 

The score was tied 1-1 in the second period when Kakko was circling the zone, as he does with the puck. After he fumbled it at the blue line, however, that sprung Mathew Barzal for a breakaway and the Islanders star lifted a nasty backhander over Shesterkin to give his team the lead. 

Visually distraught, Kakko said a few of his teammates had some encouraging words for the 21-year-old winger, which head coach Gerard Gallant noticed as well.

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“That’s perfect, because it comes from leadership,” Gallant said. “You make mistakes. Obviously, an important game like it was tonight and to give that goal up is tough on a young player. But I seen [Chris] Kreider and Goodrow down there talking to him. You’re going to make mistakes, but it’s nice that he finished off the right way.” 

That turn of events led to Gallant briefly promoting Julien Gauthier next to Alexis Lafreniere and Filip Chytil after Gauthier made it a 2-2 game roughly three minutes after Barzal’s goal. Gauthier, who was skating with some extra oomph in his first game back in the lineup after sitting in the previous three, also put the shot on net that Goodrow deflected in to knot the score at 3-3 early in the third period. 

In the 10 games leading up to the holiday break, the Rangers had to finish strong if they wanted to keep up in such a competitive division. And their eight wins are quite the Christmas and Hanukkah gift.