In a results-oriented business, the result was just about all that mattered last night to a Rangers’ team enmeshed in a midseason crisis of confidence.
And so when it ended with the Garden scoreboard showing Rangers 5 and the Islanders 4, the mission had been accomplished.
“It was as big a win as any we’ve had this year,” said Markus Naslund, whose goal at 7:12 of the third gave his team a 4-3 lead it would not relinquish. “We had more intensity, we got back to the kind of hard working team we were at the start of the year.
“No, it wasn’t a complete 60-minute game and we obviously have room to improve, but I think it’s very important for us to take the positive out of this game and build on it.”
Nigel Dawes and Ryan Callahan had positively fine performances and so did Brandon Dubinsky. Scott Gomez punctuated his positive response to being indirectly called out on Saturday by coach Tom Renney with a goal and assist in his soundest game in weeks.
But, the most positive reinforcement for the Rangers was provided by the irrepressible Petr Prucha, who not only crashed the net to score the goal that tied things 2-2 early in the third, but who created havoc on essentially every shift. Prucha was back in the lineup after being unaccountably scratched from eight straight, and 18 of the prior 21 games.
“When you are out for such a long time, you start to ask yourself if there is something wrong with your hockey,” said Prucha, whose name was chanted in Paul O’Neill style. “It’s very tough to stay confident, but a game like this helps to get your confidence back.
“I feel a lot of pressure when I go in, because I know I have to play well and I know I have to score. But I don’t mind having pressure on me.”
The pressure on Prucha was no greater than the pressure on a Rangers’ team that had not only lost three straight (0-2-1) but whose spotty play over the last month seemed to mark them as 22-13-3 imposters.
“We know we have to be better, but it is true also that a lot of teams would love to be in the position we’re in with our record,” said Gomez. “Tom said the other night that we have to get back to having fun, and he’s right, because we’d been so tight lately.”
Renney also said that, “very key members of our hockey club need . . . to be better.” One of those key players is Gomez.
“Tom’s a straight shooter; he tells it like it is,” Gomez said. “I have to take that to heart. I know I have to be better, there’s no question about that.
“It’s just been unacceptable.”
Trailing 2-1 after two, the Blueshirts scored three times in the first 7:12 of the third against the shaky Joey MacDonald, in net because Rick DiPietro, hockey’s American Idle, was down with a sore groin. They drove to the net, they took the body, and they competed.
“It wasn’t pretty but we battled,” said Henrik Lundqvist, who has allowed four or more goals in three straight and five of his last nine starts after allowing that many in two of his first 24. “Getting the win was everything.”
Rangers 5 Islanders 4