Game Recap: Islanders 7, Rangers 5

Anthony Beauvillier's first-career hat trick was the exclamation point on a night where the New York Islanders continued their recent dominance over the New York Rangers.
The Isles 7-5 win at Barclays Center on Thursday was their eighth straight win over their arch rivals - a franchise record. The Islanders also improved to 12-1-0 in their last 13 games against the Rangers and a perfect 7-0-0 vs the Blueshirts in Brooklyn.
Beauvillier (3G, 1A), Valtteri Filppula (3A) and Leo Komarov (1G, 1A) powered the Isles offense, while Brock Nelson, Anders Lee and Cal Clutterbuck also scored for the Islanders. Thomas Greiss made 36 saves in the win, as the Isles improved to 7-0-0 vs divisional opponents for the first time in franchise history.

Video: Beauvillier records hat trick in 7-5 win vs. Rangers

BEAUVILLIER RECORDS FIRST HAT TRICK:

Beau picked up a few chapeaus on Thursday night.
Anthony Beauvillier recorded his first-career NHL hat trick and first-career four-point game. The 21-year-old scored on a pair of deflections and a breakaway to complete his trick - his first three-goal game since Oct. 9, 2015 with the Shawinigan Cataractes in junior.
Beauvillier started his night by deflecting a Thomas Hickey shot upstairs past Henrik Lundqvist for his first goal and got a stick on a Johnny Boychuk blast to complete the trick. The deflections sandwiched Beauvillier's breakaway tally, as he was sprung on a tremendous two-line pass from Valtteri Filppula before beating Lundqvist stick side.

"Coming into the game I was just trying to have fun, compete and state my identity here," Beauvillier said. "A nice little tip there and then I just got going and obviously it's fun, a little relief there. I'm happy we got the win, beating the Rangers at home, it's such a big rivalry and I was pumped for the game."
The three-goal night is hopefully a breakout for Beauvillier, who only had one goal in 16 games to start the season. Beauvillier said the personal struggles were wearing on him mentally, but the team success made it easier to work through his game. Head Coach Barry Trotz said he liked Beauvillier's battle level on Thursday.
"He fixed the battle in his game," Trotz said. "That goes two-fold. He was hungry for pucks and he wanted to battle and he was skating and he got rewarded for it. When you fix the battle in your game it goes a long way."

ISLES AND RANGERS GO GOAL FOR GOAL:

After falling behind 2-0 in the first 5:35, the Islanders responded with six of the next seven goals, going up 6-3 on Komarov's third of the season midway through the third period. The Islanders made their money in front of the Rangers net on Thursday, with five goals coming via deflection and Komarov's coming via a net-front battle. Beauvillier tipped in a pair of shots off the ice, a puck caromed off Brock, while Anders Lee knocked a Nick Leddy shot out of the air for a power-play goal. Another Leddy shot caromed off Brock Nelson while Komarov, who sported stitches, a bump and a black eye, paid the price to tap in a Filppula feed
"That's how we want to play," Komarov said. "We scored a lot of goals, but we still need to work on a lot of things."

Komarov's goal put the Isles up 6-3 at 9:56 of the third, but the game wasn't over at that point, despite the chants of "you can't beat us" ringing around Barclays Center. Chris Kreider and Filip Chytil gave the Isles a scare with a pair of late goals, turning the comfortable 6-3 lead into a 6-5 nail-biter with 2:29 to play. Cal Clutterbuck eventually iced with an empty-netter for his second goal in as many games.
"On our end, we got a little sloppy at the end and made it a little closer," Lee said. "Credit to them a little bit for coming back, but we had a three-goal lead in the third period, we can be better."
The Islanders also chased Lundqvist after two periods on Thursday, scoring five goals on 17 shots. Alexandar Georgiev stopped five-of-six shots in relief.

ISLANDERS LINES:

The offensive night came in spite of a recent rash of injuries to the Isles forward corps. Andrew Ladd, Casey Cizikas and Matt Martin were all placed on IR on Thursday morning causing a pair of call-ups and some line shuffling by Barry Trotz.

NEXT GAME:

The Islanders host the Dallas Stars at 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. The Islanders are also hosting their Hockey Fights Cancer game on Sunday and Anders Lee will host his third-annual Kancer Jam after the game.