NY Islanders complete dominating season sweep of Rangers with 2-1 win at MSG

Rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer continued his record-chasing debut season Thursday night, scoring his 14th goal and lifting the New York Islanders to a 2–1 win over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden to complete a four-game season sweep of their cross-town rivals.

Schaefer’s goal moved him past Hall of Famer Bobby Orr for the second-most goals ever by an 18-year-old defenseman, trailing only Phil Housley. It was also his fourth game-winning goal, setting a new franchise rookie defenseman record ahead of Denis Potvin, and tied him with Vladimir Malakhov for the second-most goals by an Islanders rookie blueliner in a season.

“It’s an honor to be mentioned with names like that,” Schaefer said. “You grow up hearing about those guys and what they did for the game and for this franchise.”

Defenseman Carson Soucy, acquired from the Rangers earlier in the week, opened the scoring at 17:18 of the second period, beating Jonathan Quick from the left circle with a short-side shot off a cross-ice feed from Maxim Shabanov. Schaefer doubled the lead just 1:35 later off a setup from Bo Horvat, firing through a Simon Holmstrom screen.

“I have to give credit to Bo — he found me clean,” Schaefer said. “With the screen in front, I just tried to get it low blocker.” Islanders coach Patrick Roy compared Schaefer’s release to Hall of Famer Ray Bourque, noting his ability to place shots just above the pad.

Goaltender Ilya Sorokin made 20 saves as the Islanders secured their third straight victory and improved to 5-2-1 in the second half of back-to-backs. Mika Zibanejad scored the lone goal for the Rangers, who have dropped 10 of their past 12 games.

“It wasn’t our best game,” Roy said, “but good teams find ways to win, and we defended well when it mattered.”