New York Rangers: Where Does Rivalry With Islanders Rank in NHL?

The New York Rangers and New York Islanders have a great rivalry, but where does it rank according to Bleacher Report?

The NHL season recently started for the New York Rangers and New York Islanders, as they played each other in the opener. After being swept by the Islanders in the season series last season, the Rangers won 5-3 to start their season.

In the games against each other, the Rangers do hold a slight edge in the regular season. However, in the postseason, the Islanders have won more series and games in the rivalry.

Even though the two teams haven’t played in the postseason in many years, this is still one of the best rivalries in hockey. In a recent article by Bleacher Report, they ranked the Rangers and Islanders rivalry 5th best in the NHL.

Below is their reasoning:

The Battle of New York entered the hockey vocabulary in 1975 when the upstart New York Islanders—still a building expansion team—shocked the New York Rangers and hockey establishment in a preliminary three-game series. The deciding game of that series was scored by Islanders’ winger J.P. Parise, sending the young club on a run that would see them make it to the semifinals that spring.

A big part of the rivalry is fan-based, with chants of ‘1940!’ and ‘Potvin sucks’ passing into icon status and echoing in the rafters of Madison Square Garden and Nassau Coliseum. During the late 1970s and through the 1980s, one or both teams had strong rosters and the intensity of the rivalry burned hot.

Compared to the rivalries ahead of them, the reasoning behind it makes sense. The lack of a playoff series in recent years has certainly hurt the rivalry compared to others. While it is fun to see the four times they play each other in the regular season, that is nothing compared to the intensity of playoff hockey. The last time the two teams met in the postseason was in 1994, when the Rangers won their last Stanley Cup.

Both teams could find themselves in the playoffs once again this season, and that means the possibility for their paths to cross. Nothing more would excite the hockey fans in New York than seeing the Islanders and Rangers do battle in the postseason.