Speaking from experience, Doug Weight said the Islanders-Rangers rivalry really is the same on both sides. As he prepared for his first New York-New York game as Islanders coach, the former Rangers player said that each team takes the series just as seriously and intensely as the other does. That is no shock, or at least not as surprising as the fact that so many have been able to make that comparison.
As much as the teams always have disdained each other, they sure have had their share of common DNA. It goes back to the first year of the Islanders, who had former Ranger Phil Goyette as their first coach and replaced him with another, Earl Ingarfield.