Early in the NHL season, the Rangers were the best team in the league and the Islanders were one of the worst. Now the rivals have met in the middle with a crucial home-and-home coming up. MSG’s Rangers analyst Joe Micheletti tells The Post’s Justin Terranova why the teams have gone in opposite directions.
Q: Is it panic time for the Rangers?
A: There’s a concern when you start the year scoring a lot of goals, getting solid goaltending — and now the opposite is happening. They’ve played better defensively lately, but they still aren’t scoring enough. But if you look at the standings, you can reverse this pretty easily. You win seven or eight out of 10, you are back in the upper half of the conference because everything is so bunched up.
Q: Why hasn’t Henrik Lundqvist been as dominant as we are used to seeing?
A: It looks like he is allowing one soft goal a game and that’s not like him. A couple of things are happening. There’s a new system in place under John Tortorella that concentrates on defense in a different way. They now try to play defense by putting pressure up the ice, instead of just defending in your own zone, and they’ve had some problems with that this year. He’s also feeling the pressure because the team isn’t scoring and he has to be almost perfect.
Q: Who needs to step up and be a secondary scorer for the Rangers?
A: They have to get contributions from their defensemen because they play that up-tempo, defense-join-the-rush style. I don’t think you expected this team to have a whole bunch of 30-goal scorers, but at least a number of 20-goal scorers.
Q: Most thought the Islanders were built for the future. Are you surprised how well they’ve competed this year to get in the middle of the playoff race after their awful start?
A: No, I was surprised when they struggled in the beginning of the year with their goaltending. I felt with the signings of Dwayne Roloson and Marty Biron that their goaltending would be sufficient enough to get them through any struggles they would go through as a young team. But now they have goaltending that’s improving, a team that works really hard and you’ve got good young players.
Q: With that improved goaltending, how should they handle the return of Rick DiPietro, who is expected back soon?
A: You’ve got a player here you signed to a 15-year contract that you were planning on making the face of your franchise, who has proven that when he’s healthy he has the potential, because of his athletic ability and determination, to be an elite goaltender in the league. He has worked extremely hard. You put him in when he’s ready to play and trade one of the other guys.