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Banana Splits: Islanders drop pair of preseason games to Rangers and Flyers

Gonna be a long commute back.

By Dan Saraceni
NHL: Preseason-New York Islanders at Philadelphia Flyers
Whatever
Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

The Islanders dropped both of their preseason split squad games on Tuesday, losing 5-2 to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden and getting shut out by the Flyers in Philadelphia, 4-0.

In Manhattan, new Ranger Mika Zibanejad had a goal and two assists. Chris Kreider, Brandon Pirri and Dylan McIlrath also scored.

The Islanders registered the first goal, when new guy Jason Chimera scored 1:33 into the game. The Rangers scored the next three until Nick Leddy scored on a slapshot midway through the third to make the score 3-2. But McIlrath’s goal about 90 seconds later squashed the rally. Dan Girardi added an empty net goal.

Jean-Francois Berube played the entire game and stopped 26 of 30 shots. For the Rangers, Magnus Hellberg stopped 12 shots and Mackenzie Skapsky stopped 17. Each team had 31 shots on goal.

The game was on MSG and MSG+ as a Rangers broadcast and boy was it ever. Sam Rosen’s great, but man, that guy has no preseason mode. The Islanders TV crew gets their turn on September October 4th, when the teams meet for more exhibition action.

One night after shutting out an undermanned Flyers team in Brooklyn, the Islanders came up empty against a more NHL-ready roster. Wayne Simmonds scored twice and Steve Mason made 23 saves. Dale Weise and Andy Miele had the other goals for Philadelphia.

The Islanders surrendered only 20 shots, but Christopher Gibson stopped eight of the 11 he saw. You can see videos here, but yeah, he wasn’t so good. Eamon McAdam stopped all four shots he faced.

Other than that...

"Obviously Mason played a heck of a game and I thought we had some guys that distinguished themselves," Cronin said. "We're looking at the young guys like Joshua Ho-Sang and Anthony Beauvillier. Both of them played well, they were both on the puck, they forechecked hard and I was happy with them."

The Islanders get the next three days to practice until facing the Capitals on Saturday in Bridgeport.

For those too young to remember The Banana Splits: