Islanders beat Rangers to sweep season series as Matthew Schaefer, ex-Ranger Carson Soucy score
The Islanders' Carson Soucy celebrates his second-period goal against the Rangers, his former team, with Kyle MacLean at Madison Square Garden on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Most importantly, it was two points and a third straight win as the Islanders kept pace in the playoff chase. But they also took pleasure in sweeping the four-game season series from the Rangers.
“It feels great,” defenseman Adam Pelech told Newsday. “It feels great.”
Neither team was particularly sharp on the second night of the back-to-back home-and-home series, but the Islanders managed a 2-1 win on Thursday at Madison Square Garden for their third series sweep against the Rangers and first since 2017-18.
The Islanders (30-19-5) won all four in regulation by a combined 14-3 score, including Wednesday night’s 5-2 win at UBS Arena, after the Rangers swept last season’s series by an aggregate 23-5.
“To take four, it’s a good feeling,” Anders Lee said. “I think we owed them one. Last year didn’t go our way.”
Things seem to be rolling again for the Islanders, who got second-period goals 95 seconds apart from defenseman Carson Soucy, acquired from the Rangers on Monday for a third-round pick in 2026, and Matthew Schaefer. His 14th goal broke a tie with Hall of Famer Bobby Orr for the second most in NHL history by an 18-year-old defenseman. Hall of Famer Phil Housley had 17 for the Sabres in 1982-83.
“The building is full of both fans and it’s loud,” said Schaefer, who beat Jonathan Quick (19 saves) with a short-side wrister from the left circle at 18:53 of the second period to make it 2-0.
“We can score here and it gets loud because we’ve got a lot of fans here,’’ Schaefer said. “They can score there [at UBS Arena] and it can get a little loud. But our fans are way louder than theirs. It’s pretty fun when we go on the board and our fans are cheering.”
Ilya Sorokin made 20 saves as the Islanders kept pace with the second-place Penguins in the Metropolitan Division. Each team has 65 points, but the Penguins have played two fewer games. The Islanders are six points ahead of the fourth-place Capitals.
The Rangers held a 7-4 edge in high-danger chances in all situations, according to NaturalStatTrick.com, highlighting the low-event nature of the match.
“It was a good win for us,” coach Patrick Roy said. “It was not our best game of the season, but that’s what good teams do, they find ways to win. I thought we played well enough defensively to allow ourselves to stay in that game. Ilya was good again.”
“There wasn’t much out there tonight,” Lee said. “I thought they were much better defensively and much better coming back. So we had to get pucks to the net and create some havoc, and we finally did that at the end of the second.”
Soucy opened the scoring at 17:18 of the second period with a weak shot from low in the left circle that deflected past Quick’s short side. It earned him the IronMan mask as the team’s top player after former Devil Ondrej Palat was awarded it on Wednesday for notching a power-play goal and an assist in his Islanders debut.
Palat was acquired on Tuesday along with a third-round pick in 2026 and a sixth-round pick in 2027 for forward Max Tsyplakov.
“We want to keep this going,” Soucy said of the Islanders’ winning streak, including Monday’s 4-0 win in Philadelphia. “They’ve done a great job welcoming both of us in.”
Soucy finished with two wins and two losses in the Islanders-Rangers series this season, including a failed third-period penalty shot in the Islanders’ 2-0 win at UBS Arena on Dec. 27. He became the first player to score for both the Islanders and Rangers at Madison Square Garden in the same season.
“When you’re going against someone in your division, let alone your in-state rival, it’s nice to be on the winning side for the last two,” said Soucy, a pending unrestricted free agent. “Losing to these guys those first couple of games kind of hurt. So this one feels pretty good.”
Mika Zibanejad’s power-play one-timer brought the Rangers within a goal at 2:48 of the third period.
The Rangers (22-27-6) — playing without Artemi Panarin as they wait to trade the pending unrestricted free agent and without injured goalie Igor Shesterkin and defenseman Adam Fox — had their skid grow to 2-9-1.
Notes & quotes: Casey Cizikas (illness) was unavailable, snapping his team-best streak of playing in 161 straight games. Lee, at 136 games, now has the Islanders’ longest consecutive-games streak.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.
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