Kartye’s Two Goals Help the Rangers Defeat the Lightning and End a Horrible Season

By Daniel Feuerstein | Tampa, FL | April 15th, 2026

The New York Rangers played their final game of the 2025-26 season. They headed to Western Florida to face the Tampa Bay Lightning as they were finishing up their season, and they are getting ready for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. With nothing to play for, the Rangers wanted to finish this season on a positive note and did so as they took down the Lightning by a final score of four to two.

Game Recap

Both Igor Shesterkin nd Andrei Vasilevsky were given the night off, so it was Dylan Garand for the Rangers and Brandon Halverson for the Lightning. But a player who has been showing something since being picked up on waivers was Tye Kartye, as he is finishing off strong in the second half of the season. He scored two goals in the game and looked dangerous. As the Lightning cleared the puck out of their zone, Adam Fox skated to retrieve the puck and entered the neutral zone. Gave the puck to Vladislav Gavrikov at the near boards. Dropped the puck back to Mika Zibanejad, then quickly gave a crossice pass to Kartye and on a one-timer slammed the puck past Halverson at 4:02 of the first period.

Kartye’s second goal of the game came off a bounce from the end boards. With the puck in the neutral zone, Conor Sheary picked it up at the near boards and sent it down to J.T. Miller, who shot it towards the net and missed, but off the rebound, Kartye skated toward the far faceoff circle to get the puck and quickly scored again to make it a two-goal lead at 1:29 of the second period.

The Rangers got a three-goal lead and continued to apply pressure. Kartye left the puck for Will Cuylle as he skated by the near boards. He saw Gabe Perreault coming towards him and dropped the puck off for Gabe to pick it up and skate with it all the way up the boards and towards the top of the Lightning zone. Then, in an instant, Perreault took a hard wrist shot from just inside the blue line and beat Halverson from long distance at 4:49 of the second period.

Oliver Bjorkstrand finally got the Lightning on the board, but the Rangers continued to play hard. They earned a power play and went on the attack. With the puck down in the near corner, the puck slithered toward Miller. He sent it back to the slot at Alexis Lafreniere, as he decided to take a shot, but saw Zibanejad get loose and skate towards the net, made it a pass and a redirection from Zibanejad, adding to his Power Play tally at 12:46 of the second period.

While the Lightning got a second goal by Corey Perry inside the first minute of the third period, the Rangers did enough to get the win and ended their season. While Garand made 29 saves out of 31 shots on goal, the Rangers defeated the Lightning twice in their building. But now we wait and see what the Rangers will do in the upcoming draft and free agency as well as shedding payroll and cutting certain players to aim towards a new era.

Mike Sullivan’s Comments

“I thought I just said to the team after the game, we’re certainly proud of the way we competed down the stretch. Under difficult circumstances. I always believe there’s something to play for when you put your skates on, but I give our players credit. I thought we competed hard. This kind of game, was there anything you specifically were looking for, or were you looking just for a good team effort to finish it up the right way? Yeah, we just wanted to compete. We wanted to put a solid team game on the ice. That was the objective. That’s the goal, right? For me, the biggest thing is just competitive spirit and making sure we’re hard on pucks, and we play the team game. You know, as I said, these aren’t the easiest circumstances for obvious reasons, but I give our players a lot of credit. I thought we competed hard down the stretch, not just tonight, but, you know, post-Olympic break on, I feel like this group played hard.”

MIKA ZIBANEJAD:  Was named the 2025-26 Team MVP, as voted on by the New York media, and received the Players’ Player Award, as voted on by his fellow teammates. In tonight’s game, he recorded his 16th power play goal of the season, tied for fifth among all NHL skaters this season, and notched his 19th multi-point game, the most on the New York this season.

DYLAN GARAND: Helped the Rangers earn a win in their last contest of the season and has helped New York earn points in all three of his career NHL starts (2-0-1). He became the sixth Rangers rookie goaltender to have recorded at least a three-game point streak through their first career NHL games and the first to do so since 2005-06 (Henrik Lundqvist).

WILL CUYLLE: Recorded five hits tonight, registering a career season high of 302 hits, and has led the Rangers in hits in three straight seasons. In that span, his 852 hits rank third among all NHL skaters.

TYE KARTYE: Notched his first career multi-goal game and first career three-point game (2G-1A). Since joining the Rangers on Feb. 27, he is tied for sixth on the team in goals (5), and ranks seventh in assists (9) and points (12).

GABE PERREAULT: Has scored a goal in back-to-back games and has collected six points (5G-1) over his last eight games. Since Mar. 2, his 19 points rank second among all NHL rookies, and his nine goals rank third.

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