Revisiting the seven minutes that forged an instant classic.
What do you get when you cross one team that makes a lot of comebacks with another team that blows a lot of leads?
If you were a New York Rangers fan contemplating an early exit from Sunday's Stadium Series tussle with the Islanders, that was something you had to consider.
The points in the "leave" column were obvious - mid-February chill, football stadium traffic, a two-goal deficit to a desperate team that had allowed your Blueshirts hardly a sniff at even strength since the close of the second period.
And in the "stay" column, you had one word - faith.
Pretty much everybody stayed, of course.
And whereas the outlook was so bleak with seven minutes to go in the third, the tenor of the game had completely flipped only a minute later.
That's one of the many beauties of sports. Momentum isn't everything, but it's real, and it does matter.
Sure, a good goalie can halt it. Isles netminder Ilya Sorokin sure tried. But if you have momentum, you always have a chance. One thing leads to another, and another, and another, and before you know, what seemed impossible a minute ago suddenly feels like a foregone conclusion.
Now that the Rangers' rousing Metlife Stadium triumph is behind us, it's easy to forget how many things had to break right and how many good plays they had to make over the course of seven minutes just to have a chance.
And that's why today it's worth revisiting the tiny moments and decisions that merged to transform an unforgettable event into something even better, an unforgettable game, worthy of the label "instant classic" no matter what venue it was played in.
13:19 3rd Period - Igor Shesterkin stops two-on-one
None of the following would have made a difference had the Islanders taken a 6-3 lead with under seven minutes to play, which came within a nose-hair of happening.
Some sloppy positioning by the Ranger forwards allowed an odd-man rush and speedy winger Pierre Engvall found Brock Nelson streaking backdoor for what looked like an easy forehand finish.
Shesterkin dove across and robbed the Isles' leading goal scorer with his blocker for his last, best, and most pivotal save of the afternoon.
With the large crowd still applauding Shesterkin's dandy, Erik Gustafsson reclaimed the puck and made a heads-up stretch pass to Artemi Panarin, who set up linemate Vincent Trocheck in the left-wing corner for what would become the turning point of the contest.
13:32-13:40 3rd Period - Trocheck draws a penalty
"I don't know if I can take credit for starting a comeback just because I got a matching minor," Trocheck said after the game.
Fair enough. But there's no denying this was the moment fate really began to turn in the Rangers' favor. That's because matching minors do affect on-ice man-power, and for the Blueshirts, this drop to 4-against-4 turned out to be a goldmine.
It began with a disagreement between scruffy Isles defender Alexander Romanov and Trocheck over whether or not the former should cross-check the latter four times in the back of the ribs. Romanov voted "yay," but he was not initially penalized. Only after Trocheck went back at the bigger Romanov did referee Jake Brenk decide to send away both, and the resulting open ice brought a sense of uneasiness over the Islander fans in the crowd.
13:48-14:16 3rd Period - K'Andre Miller steals the puck, draws another penalty
The 4-on-4 soured so fast for the Islanders that it's hard to believe they controlled the puck first.
Indeed they did, but K'Andre Miller nipped that in the bud right quick, picking Adam Pelech's pocket along the defensive wall and starting a rush the other way.
Some nifty criss-crossing at the point between Miller, Chris Kreider, and Adam Fox drew Isles center Mat Barzal into a compromising position.
Next thing you knew, Barzal was lassoing Miller by the spleen - an obvious hooking call - and Rangers coach Peter Laviolette had a decision before him.
14:16 3rd Period - Shesterkin exits for an extra attacker
It may seem like a no-brainer from home or from the stands, but pulling the goalie with nearly six minutes to play - even for a 5-on-3 power play - is easier said than done.
Coach Laviolette explained his thought process:
"I know it was close to six minutes left on the clock, but we're down by two goals. If you do the math, if we're not successful inside of that 4-on-3, which is a tough power play at times, you have three minutes and fifty seconds left, and you'll have used the guys that you wanted to."
Ironically, the man widely credited for popularizing the super early goalie pull is current Islanders head coach, Patrick Roy.
To say the extra attacker made a difference for the Rangers on this power play would be an understatement. Over the next minute and thirty-six seconds, Roy's crew didn't muster a single clear.
In fact, they had only one clean opportunity, but that was ruined by one of the more dramatic keep-ins of the season.
14:55 - 15:52 3rd Period - Fox lunges for dear life; Kreider puts exhausted penalty killers out of their misery
Certainly, Scott Mayfield thought he had it.
The entire rink was staring him in the face. But Adam Fox came out of nowhere.
The 2021 Norris Trophy winner uses a pretty long stick for his height, and he needed every inch of it - plus a desperation dive - to bat down Mayfield's surefire clear in the high slot.
Three words - anticipation, acceleration, and hustle.
That play was the Islanders' one chance to escape the Barzal penalty alive. From that moment on, their winded guys had no shot. A minute later, the Rangers finally broke through, thanks to an artful toss-and-tip between Panarin and Kreider, to cut the lead in half.
17:32 3rd Period - Alexis Lafreniere sends Mayfield back to the box
What do you do when you need a goal, and you're face-to-face with a fellow who has two minors in the game already? Go right at him.
Lafreniere got the memo. His dash at Mayfield with two-and-a-half minutes to go would prove to be an essential part of the script.
A lot's been written and said about the trip from Mayfield's perspective, but give Lafreniere style points also, as he fooled the large St. Louisan with a nifty inside-out maneuver.
Hey, you need a little luck too. We can praise the Rangers' execution in the earlier empty-net situation, but this one left a little to be desired off the opening draw, as four Manhattan dudes converged on the left circle, leaving weakside Isles chaser Cal Clutterbuck wide-the-heck open and lining up a 130-foot chip for the win. But when you're in a football stadium, sometimes things sail wide right. Ask the Buffalo Bills.
18:20 - 18:31 3rd Period - Rangers "refuse to lose"
"I thought our power play guys, at the end of the game, in the biggest moments, in the biggest circumstances, they really delivered," said Laviolette. "They had to work, they had to fight and scratch and deliver a game."
The "fighting" and the "scratching" were most visible on an offensive zone faceoff with 1:44 to go.
First, Mika Zibanejad held off the bigger Ryan Pulock, preventing what should have been an easy clear. Then Lafreniere made a diving stab at Adam Pelech, preventing what would have been an even easier clear.
The rest is "Battle of New York" history - a brilliant three-way tic-tac-toe connection to set off the biggest reaction from the biggest crowd that ever watched a Rangers-Islanders game live.
"I just liked the resiliency," Laviolette continued. "Those guys at the end had to work, and they had to make plays in order to get us to that overtime period."
00:05 - 00:10 Overtime - Comeback complete
Sunday night marked the second time in his Rangers career that Artemi Panarin ended a 3-on-3 overtime against the Islanders by brazenly stealing the puck right in the middle of the ice.
The first was on February 25, 2020, when he stripped Anthony Beauvillier and set up Zibanejad for a winner. Four years later, the Islanders got careless around Panarin in overtime again, and the thief-in-chief penned a poetic conclusion to an epic match.