Last night at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers hosted the Islanders in the fourth of what will be eight regular season matches between the bitter rivals. But to the dismay of the vocal Garden crowd, the Isles came out victorious, defeating the Blueshirts 5–3 and snapping their six-game losing streak.

The Isles opened the scoring just over five minutes into the first period. Chris Campoli struggled to gain possession of a Freddy Meyer pass deep in the Rangers’ zone, but teammate Miroslav Satan quickly took it from him and whipped a wrist shot past Lundqvist to give the Isles a 1–0 lead.

The lead was short-lived, however, as the teams traded goals. Less than one minute after Satan’s goal, Alexei Yashin was sent to the penalty box for hooking. And on the ensuing power play, Jaromir Jagr absorbed a huge hit from Brendan Witt in order to complete a crisp pass to red-hot Martin Straka. Straka buried the puck past Rick DiPietro, and the game was back to even.

A crucial game-within-the-game for the Rangers and Isles this season is the one-on-one battle between Jagr and Witt. For Blueshirts coach Tom Renney, the challenge during games played at the Garden is to utilize the last line change to get Jagr as many shifts as possible where he isn’t matched up against Witt. Meanwhile, Isles coach Ted Nolan must attempt to get Witt onto the ice as quickly as possible in order to neutralize the Rangers’ superstar forward.

Halfway through the first period, Renney got the match-up he wanted, and the Rangers’ top line went to work. Michael Nylander delivered an excellent cross-ice pass to Straka. And when everyone in the building — including DiPietro — thought Straka was going to shoot, he instead fired a crisp pass across the Isles’ crease to Jagr, who redirected the puck into the yawning net to give the Blueshirts a 2–1 lead. The marker snapped an eight game goal-less drought for Jagr; it served as one of the few bright spots for the Rangers in the disappointing defeat.

As the first period was nearing its conclusion, Viktor Kozlov skated the puck into the offensive zone and was hooked by Michal Rozsival. During the delayed penalty, the Isles skated six-on-five, and Witt — not normally known for his offensive prowess — blasted a onetime past Lundqvist to knot the game at two.

Early in the second stanza, the Isles again took the lead, as Mike Sillinger outworked Marek Malik and Rozsival for a rebound and backhanded the puck past Lundqvist. But the Rangers went onto the power play late in the second period, when Andy Hilbert was incarcerated for holding. And under one minute into the third, Hilbert was still in the penalty box when Brendan Shanahan ripped a Jaromir Jagr pass past DiPietro to once again even the score.

But just when the Rangers appeared to be gaining momentum, the Islanders took decisive control. First Kozlov converted a nifty Randy Robitaille pass to put the Isles up 4–3. Thirty seconds later, Sillinger intercepted an ill-advised pass from Fedor Tyutin and buried his own rebound past Lundqvist to put the Islanders up 5–3. The Isles’ lead stood, and they now hold a 4–0 lead in the season series.

Last night’s game was played at a spirited pace, and the teams’ rivalry remains quite compelling — though somewhat less physically charged — in the post-lockout NHL. The teams next meet on March 5 at the Garden and on March 8 at the Nassau Coliseum in what should be a very compelling home-and-home series.

Mr. Greenstein is the editor in chief of InsideHockey.com.