The cavalcade of the history of the Battle of New York was on full display on a football field in New Jersey and through more than a half-century of hockey fratricide, there has never been anything quite like this.
Mark Messier was in the house and so was Bryan Trottier. Adam Graves was here and so was John Tonelli. There were Dynasty guys, there were 1994 guys, there was Henrik Lundqvist. But, more to the moment, there were also Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Mat Barzal and Matt Martin on the ice.
These teams had met outdoors once before, at Yankee Stadium in a rather pedestrian 2-1 Rangers victory in 2014. There was nothing pedestrian about this Sunday afternoon match at MetLife in which the Blueshirts stormed back from a 4-1 deficit early in the second and a 5-3 deficit late in the third to record a 6-5 victory on Artemi Panarin’s goal 10 seconds into overtime.
That’s one second better than J.P. Parise could do in 1975. Well, yes, that settled the decisive game of a playoff series and this settled a mid-February tussle. But there are going to be 79,690 folks who will tell you they had a ticket to this extravaganza because that is the number that filled the Stadium with a Wall of Sound that would have made Phil Spector proud.
“I had to hold back tears just because it was that much of a spectacle,” Panarin said through an interpreter after tracking the puck down off the OT draw and chipping it past Ilya Sorokin for the winner even as Noah Dobson kicked the net off its moorings before it went in. “I have to say the atmosphere was electric and it was something I couldn’t compare anything else to.
“I’d like to thank the fans for giving it that electric wave of emotion.”
These outdoor games have become the NHL’s signature events. They represent Holidays on Ice. This was the league’s 41st foray into the elements and one of its most memorable. Maybe there is the Snow Globe effect of the first Winter Classic in Buffalo in which Sidney Crosby got the winner in a shootout. There was the 2012 Winter Classic in Philadelphia in which Lundqvist denied Danny Briere at 19:40 of the third period to preserve a Rangers’ 3-2 victory.
And there is this one in which the Blueshirts, parched on the power play over the last month, got two at 15:52 and 18:31 of the third period after head coach Peter Laviolette had pulled Igor Shesterkin for a six-on-four advantage as the Islanders went down a man three times in the final 9:24 of regulation.
The new boss, Patrick Roy, is not the same as the old boss, Lane Lambert, but the results on the ice have become eerily similar for this Islanders team that cannot hold leads. This squad is the antitheses of what Lou Lamoriello teams have been for decades. This was not a point gained.
The stunning rally under the elements tends to camouflage just how lacking the Blueshirts seemed to be through the first 21:03 in which they fell behind, 4-1. Shesterkin was leaky following what had been a three-game mini-revival. The Blueshirts were being beaten in puck battles. They were outdone in front of both nets.
But the Rangers, who entered having won six straight, revved it up as a team with unending confidence. Their marquee guys took control. Panarin, with 32 goals, was all over the place. So was Vincent Trocheck. Kreider redirected Panarin’s drive for the 5-4 goal at 15:52 for his eighth in the last 11 games. Mika Zibanejad got the tying goal on a hellacious low left-circle one-timer on a gorgeous feed from the transcendent Adam Fox at 18:31.
This was star power under the literal stars.
The Rangers have some calls to make in advance of Tuesday’s match at the Garden against Dallas. Jimmy Vesey started on the right with Kreider and Zibanejad but got only the opening shift there in the third. That is when Laviolette began juggling, sending No. 26 back to the fourth line with Barclay Goodrow and Adam Edstrom while Matt Rempe sat, Kaapo Kakko moved up for a spin and Panarin did some double-shifting with the BFF’s.
This, of course, was a part of the 82-game schedule but it was apart from the routine of the regular season. This was a signature event for the NHL. This was a signature event in the annals of the Battle of New York.
The Rangers scrawled their signatures all over it.
John Hancock never had anything on Artemi Panarin.
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