3 Takeaways: Islanders 3, Rangers 0

Points mattered more than pride on Thursday, but the New York Islanders took both from the New York Rangers, scoring a 3-0 shutout over their rivals at Barclays Center.
Jaroslav Halak made 50 saves for his first shutout of the season, while Mathew Barzal had a game-high three assists. That, plus goals from Josh Bailey, Jordan Eberle and Thomas Hickey, added up to an important win for the Islanders, who used the spark of a Ranger game to snap a two-game losing streak and pick up a pair of points in their playoff chase.

The Islanders led nearly wire-to-wire, as Bailey opened the scoring with power-play goal at 4:53 of the first period and the Isles never looked back. Eberle's 20th of the season made it 2-0 at 15:06 of the second and Hickey banked a backhand pass of David Desharnais to make it 3-0 in the third for his 100th career point.
"It's always good to get on the board first," Bailey said. "I thought we were able to play a pretty complete game tonight. I thought we couldn't find too many holes in our game, when they had chances Jaro made good saves and all in all, a good win for us."
Here are three takeaways from Thursday's game.

1. HALAK, BARZAL CONTINUE TO SHINE VS RANGERS:

The Rangers have brought the best out of the Islanders of late. The win was the Islanders' sixth straight victory against the Rangers and 10th in 11 games. The Islanders also remained undefeated at Barclays Center against the Rangers, improving to 5-0-0 in Brooklyn.
As a group, the Islanders get up to play their crosstown rivals, but perhaps no one more than Jaroslav Halak and Mathew Barzal.
With his 50-save shutout - the most saves in any shutout this season in the NHL - Halak improved to 10-3-0 against the Blueshirts since he joined the Islanders. Overall, Halak is 17-7-0 in his career vs the Rangers and is 13-1-0 in his last 14 head-to-head games against Henrik Lundqvist.
"I think 41 has the spell on the Rangers more than our team as a whole, he seems to play good every time we play them," Hickey said.

Halak was busy on Thursday, but the Islanders did a good job of keeping the Rangers to the outside and in low-percentage areas, but the Isles netminder was there when needed. The Slovakian kept the Islanders afloat during a sluggish start to the second period and was alert and ready off defensive zone turnovers and scrambles around the net.
There were only a few close calls, one in the final minute of the second period where Halak reached behind him to fish a puck out of his crease after a Kevin Hayes deflection, and another in the third, where a David Desharnais was called back after kicking in the puck.
"He played incredible," Eberle said. "We've given up a ton of shots and Jaro has been there for the most part to handle it and keep us in games. It was nice for us to give something back for him, with a shutout but we still want to limit the shots, with 50 it's still too many so we have to work on that."

While Halak's success dates back years, Barzal has showed his chops against the Rangers and now has nine points (3G, 6A) in three games against the Blueshirts.
The bigger the game, the bigger the performance from the Islanders rookie, who scored his first NHL goal against the Rangers on Oct. 19 and had a five-point night at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 13. Turns out his off-Broadway show is pretty good too.
"I don't know if it's actually just playing the Rangers, but I think it's just the whole atmosphere and the whole magnitude of the rivalry," Barzal said. "You can kind of just feel it in the air when the Rangers and Islanders play and that's what I've kind of got from the last three times. I love that feeling. It's the NHL, it felt like a playoff game kind of night right out of the gate. I love that atmosphere more than I do just playing the Rangers."

2. STANDINGS IMPLICATIONS:

Usually when the Islanders and Rangers play, the rivalry dominates the narrative heading into the game. But with two teams separated by one point - pregame - and looking to get back into the playoffs, the rivalry took a back seat.
With the win, the Islanders made up some ground on the teams they are chasing to get into the Eastern Conference wild card, tying the Columbus Blue Jackets with 62 points, while lurking one back of the Carolina Hurricanes (63 points).
But moving up was only half of the implications of Thursday's win, as the Islanders also pushed the Rangers (59 points) down the ladder. Now three points and the East river separate the crosstown rivals.
"It was a must-win tonight," Barzal said. "We gotta approach every game like that now."
Another big game is right around the corner, as the Islanders and Hurricanes meet on Friday night in Raleigh.

3. POWER PLAY STAYS HOT:

The Islanders power play only needed 11 seconds to convert on their first opportunity, as Bailey snapped a wrister top shelf past Henrik Lundqvist. The Islanders finished the night 1-for-2 with the man advantage and now have power-play goals in six of the team's last seven games, going 9-for-26 over that span.
"When you get on a bit of a roll you just want to keep it going as long as you can and try to use each game as momentum into the next game," Bailey said before the game.

POSTGAME VIDEO: