Zibanejad's hat trick helps Rangers top Sabres, gain in East

NEW YORK --Mika Zibanejad scored his League-leading third hat trick of the season for the New York Rangers in a 6-3 win against the Buffalo Sabres at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

Zibanejad also recorded a hat trick in wins against the Philadelphia Flyers on March 17 and 25. The Rangers center leads the NHL with 16 goals in 22 games since March 17.
"I probably have had better games than tonight where I didn't have three goals or points," Zibanejad said. "The puck just seemed to go in today, and when you have that feeling you just keep shooting. I am playing with two great players on my line (Pavel Buchnevich and Alexis Lafreniere) and they're finding me. I just have to shoot and pray to God that it goes in."

Kaapo Kakko scored two goals and Igor Shesterkin made 31 saves for the Rangers (25-18-6), who have won two straight and are four points behind the Boston Bruins, who have two games in hand, for fourth place in the MassMutual East Division. The top four teams will qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
"That's the only thing we can do, try to win games and see how far that takes us, really," Zibanejad said. "That's our mindset right now, just focus on the next game, try to get the two points and move on from there."
The Rangers knew prior to the start of their game that they could close the gap in the standings with Boston losing 1-0 to the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier in the day.
"I thought you could feel it before the game that we understood that we had another opportunity to maybe climb back into this thing," New York coach David Quinn said. "There's hope."
Sam Reinhart had a goal and an assist, and Dustin Tokarski made 23 saves for the Sabres (13-29-7), who are last in the division and have already been eliminated from playoff contention.
Buffalo and New York will complete the two-game set here Tuesday.
"We did make some adjustments as the game went along, gave up a lot less, but obviously we couldn't make up the goal differential and that was the problem," Sabres coach Don Granato said. "We're obviously an evolving group here. I don't want to say learning, it's more evolving and adjusting. We made some adjustments in-game that slowed that tide and tipped things at least from a chance standpoint in our favor. But, again, too late and now we get a chance to play them right away again and it will be nice to see how we can respond."

Zibanejad scored the first of three goals by New York in the first period with a shot off the rush from above the right hash marks to make it 1-0 at 4:49.
Jeff Skinner scored on a high backhand from the slot to tie it 1-1 at 6:16, but Kakko made it 2-1 when he scored with a one-timer from the right circle off a diagonal pass by Adam Fox from the top of the left circle at 12:02.
"That's his vision," Kakko said of Fox. "He's a great player and when he's got the puck on the blue line just be ready, he can do something like that."
Zibanejad scored a power-play goal on a net-front deflection of Artemi Panarin's pass at 17:10 to make it 3-1.
He then completed the hat trick at 2:05 of the second period, giving the Rangers a 4-1 lead with a shot through Tokarski's legs after putting the puck between his own legs in the neutral zone to receive Buchnevich's pass.
Granato said at that point he thought about pulling Tokarski in favor of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who won in his NHL debut against the Bruins on Friday.
"I gave a lot of thought to it, consulted with our coaches, our goalie coach," he said. "I was concerned at that point with Dustin's confidence, probably the fourth goal. … Dustin responded fine from that standpoint."

Victor Olofsson gave Buffalo hope with a power-play goal at 14:47 of the second to make it 4-2, but again Kakko responded, this time with a power-play goal to make it 5-2 at 7:06 of the third period.
Reinhart scored with a one-timer from the left circle at 10:34 to cut it to 5-3.
Kevin Rooney scored a shorthanded empty-net goal at 19:05 for the 6-3 final.
"We've just got to keep taking each game as it is and keep playing meaningful hockey until someone tells us these games aren't meaningful," Quinn said.
NOTES:Fox had three assists to give him 41 assists and 46 points this season, each of which leads the League among defensemen. … Kakko has scored two goals in two games this season, with the other also coming at home against the Sabres on March 22. … Zibanejad's hat trick was his sixth with the Rangers, which is third in their history behind Rod Gilbert (seven) and Bill Cook (nine). … New York has scored eight shorthanded goals this season, which is tied with Boston and the Montreal Canadiens for the most in the NHL.