While the Islanders showed some life at times during the game, they just couldn’t maintain any sort of prolonged energy on the ice, which enabled the Rangers to skate away with a 4-2 win.

Both of these team’s are having their own problems scoring, but when you have the big names the Rangers have, it’s easier to snap out of droughts. Last night, the Rangers got goals from Jaromir Jagr and a few of his pals that weren’t contributing as much as they were before. You can make the argument that the Isles were tired because they had a game the night before, but how valid will an excuse like that be if the team makes the playoffs this season.

However, aside from the Rangers play in the offensive end, the game was pretty give and take in the neutral zone. The Rangers just took advantage of the Isles mistakes and cashed in. Despite that though, you get the feeling that this Rangers team is going through the same thing the Isles are.

Nevertheless, the Isles are a one-dimensional team right now. They feed off of their defense, which are Rick DiPietro, Brendan Witt and Radek Martinek. Over the past few weeks, it feels like when those three players don’t have their best games, the team either doesn’t win or gets something big from someone else. Mike Sillinger stepped up earlier in the week and Richard Park has been playing his heart out, in addition to Josef Vasicek. However, the Islanders need more than that.

People like Trent Hunter, Andy Hilbert Sean Bergenheim and Ruslan Fedotenko need to start finishing and Mike Comrie, Bill Guerin and Miroslav Satan need to start producing more. The way Comrie and Guerin have played over the past 10 games is indicative of how most of the forwards of played, not good enough. They get opportunities with the man advantage and still can’t finish. What happened to the chemistry that was on the powerplay, did it evaporate?

How can chemistry just disappear like that? Here’s an answer. It can’t. These guys just aren’t working as hard on offense as they were earlier in the season and are squeezing their sticks whenever they get a open net to shoot at.

Streakiness only works when players get hot at different times. Having the first line start so hot was great through the first week of the season was great, but now it’s time to find some consistency on offense. Every night, this team plays good defense and gets the saves they need from their goaltenders, now it’s time to do the same thing in the offensive end.