The Rangers had a 3-0 cushion at Madison Square Garden and still walked off Tuesday night with a loss.
In their preseason home opener, New York watched the Islanders score four unanswered goals and escape with a 4-3 win. The turning point was special teams, where the Rangers got buried under a stream of penalties and the Islanders cashed in with three power-play goals, including Mattias Maccelli’s winner at 9:29 of the third period.
“That’s the most practice our penalty kill has gotten this season so far,” coach Mike Sullivan said postgame. “To their defense, we just started to introduce it today, so they haven’t had a real opportunity to get a lot of reps at it. For a lot of the night, we were trying to use the young guys in those roles.”
The Rangers are still looking for their first preseason win after opening with a 3-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Monday night. The Islanders, meanwhile, improved to 1-1-0 after erasing the deficit over the final 28:24 of regulation. Matthew Schaefer and Maccelli were central to the comeback, finishing with three points apiece and touching every one of the Islanders’ final three goals.
The game had the edge you’d expect when both teams dressed most of their NHL regulars for the first time this preseason. There was one fight, too, with 20-year-old Rangers forward Liam Greentree trading punches with 6-foot-3 Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield and coming away with a hard-fought draw.
Even with the result, there were encouraging moments for the Rangers’ newer faces. Rookie center Cole Beaudoin, acquired in the Vincent Trocheck trade, opened the scoring at 8:23 of the first period, finishing a play started by Sean Durzi and Eeli Tolvanen.
Pavel Dorofeyev added another in the second period, and free-agent addition Oliver Bjorkstrand picked up the assist. Rookie defenseman Alberts Smits, the No. 5 overall pick in 2026, also made his mark with a primary assist on Taylor Raddysh’s goal and steady work in his own end, including a sharp stick check on Islanders captain Bo Horvat in the first period.
The Rangers were up 3-0 before the game started slipping away. Dorofeyev struck again at 6:03 of the second with a blistering one-timer over Ilya Sorokin’s glove, and Smits created the next goal just 77 seconds later when his pass to the middle was redirected home by Raddysh at 7:20.
Igor Shesterkin handled the first two periods in his 2026 preseason debut and stopped 18 of 20 shots. Spencer Martin took over in the third and allowed two power-play goals on eight shots.
Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov split the Islanders’ net. Varlamov got the win by stopping all nine shots he faced in his first NHL action since Nov. 29, 2024, after two partial knee replacement surgeries.
Shesterkin looked sharp early, especially after an interference penalty on Tolvanen. He snared wristers from Schaefer and Calum Ritchie in quick succession, part of four strong glove saves in his 39:36 of ice time.
But the Islanders started punching back late in the second. Kyle MacLean got them on the board at 11:36 after a defensive breakdown in front, snapping a shot that clipped Shesterkin’s mask and found the net.
Then Schaefer made it 3-2 with 2:13 left in the period after a hooking penalty on Beaudoin. His shot trickled in after a bounce off the post and off Shesterkin.
The third period belonged to Maccelli. He tied it 3-3 at 4:02 with a sharp-angle shot that clipped Durzi’s skate and slipped through Martin. At 9:29, with Alexis Lafreniere in the box for high-sticking, Schaefer fired a shot off Martin’s pad and Maccelli jumped on the rebound, sweeping in the go-ahead backhand into an open net.
Martin went off for the extra attacker with 2:50 left, but Varlamov held firm and stopped three shots in the final 86 seconds.
The Rangers return to Garden ice Thursday night against the Devils for their third preseason game after Wednesday’s off day.
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