Chris Kreider's hat trick is the capper in Rangers' comeback victory
The Rangers celebrate a hat-trick goal by left wing Chris Kreider against the Coyotes in the third period of an NHL game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
On paper, it was a nondescript midwinter game against a weak opponent on the wrong end of a back-to-back. But the Rangers managed to turn Saturday night’s visit by the Arizona Coyotes into an entertaining adventure.
And a successful one.
Their 7-3 victory at Madison Square Garden featured Chris Kreider’s fifth career hat trick and a stirring comeback from an awful start by a team hung over from a night-long ordeal returning from North Carolina.
The Rangers were happy to take it after what Jacob Trouba called "a wild 48 hours for us."
It included a 6-3 loss to the Hurricanes on Friday night in a game widely viewed as a test against one of the best teams in the league. Then came a return home from snowy North Carolina that ended for Trouba when he walked into his front door at 4:15 a.m. and was greeted by his new puppy.
Finally, there was a somnambulant first period on Saturday night that ended with the Rangers trailing 2-1, having been outshot at one point by 15-2.
Asked if getting in late had led to the slow start, coach Gerard Gallant said, "I hope it did. I don’t know. It was tough to watch the first period, for sure."
It got even worse early in the second, even after Gallant started the period with a potent line of Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin after Filip Chytil was lost with a lower- body injury.
Clayton Keller’s goal at 7:01 of the second made it 3-1 for Arizona (10-26-4), which had lost to the Islanders, 4-0, on Friday. Cue the game’s biggest goal, a shorthanded one on a feed from Trouba to Kreider at 11:30 of the second. "It was definitely a momentum-changer, for sure," Gallant said.
The Coyotes quickly fell apart after that. Julien Gauthier scored at 15:26. Panarin scored on a power play at 16:33, 15 seconds after Arizona’s Johan Larsson was penalized for punching Adam Fox in the back of the head.
Kreider scored unassisted at 18:42, and it was 5-3. Then Trouba scored his second goal at 1:33 of the third. Then Kreider scored his third at 10:06 for the Rangers’ sixth goal in a row.
Hats rained onto the ice, and fans cheered when Kreider was shown on the video board.
With Alex Ovechkin scoring twice for the Capitals on Saturday night, Kreider’s career-high 29 goals were tied for the league lead with one of the best players of all time.
What did Kreider think about that? "I think we’d like to pull ahead of him in the standings," he said. (The Rangers’ 58 points currently are three points ahead of the Capitals’ 55.)
Kreider skated around all questions related to his personal achievements. "We want to make the playoffs," he said. "That’s the only goal. Scoring goals helps our team win."
It was a four-point night for Kreider, the second of his career.
The game began with Dryden Hunt playing with Zibanejad and Kreider after Kaapo Kakko was scratched after warmups with an upper-body injury.
Then Gallant had Panarin join them. It worked.
"It jump-started them," the coach said. "It got them going."
Where do the Rangers (27-11-4) go from here? Well, nowhere. They have another home game, against the Kings, on Monday.
A better start would be advisable. Trouba said "it didn’t feel good" having to play a game on such little sleep. But the end result was a victory.
"You work for three hours," Trouba said. "Find a way to pull it together and show up for three hours. It’s your job. It’s what you get paid to do. It’s part of being a professional."
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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