This could have been expected to be tight and physical, and full of speed and aggression. It was Rangers-Islanders, for goodness sake.
But as the Rangers kept losing bodies, they just couldn’t keep making up deficits, eventually falling to the Islanders, 4-2, on Tuesday night at Barclays Center.
The Rangers were already playing without former Islander Michael Grabner, who was in Austria after the death of his grandmother. Then, by 6:38 into the second period, the Blueshirts were playing with just 10 forwards, after both Rick Nash and Matt Puempel went down to injuries.
“That’s part of the game.