Vesey's hat trick lifts Rangers past Hurricanes

NEW YORK --Jimmy Vesey had his first career hat trick, and the New York Rangers defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 6-3 at Madison Square Garden on Monday.
"It took me all four years in college [Harvard University] to get one, so it's nice to have one [in the NHL]," Vesey said. "Everyone dreams when they're a kid of scoring a big goal or scoring a hat trick. It's something I'll always remember. It's a great feeling."

Mats Zuccarello scored two goals, Pavel Buchnevich and Mika Zibanejad each had three assists, and Alexandar Georgiev made 41 saves to help the Rangers (31-32-7) end a four-game home losing streak (0-3-1).
\[WATCH: All Hurricanes vs. Rangers highlights\]
New York, which hadn't won at home since defeating the Calgary Flames 4-3 on Feb. 9, is nine points behind the New Jersey Devils for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.
"The mood is always better when you win," Vesey said. "No one is going to take it easy on us just because we have a young lineup. We can't feel bad for ourselves. We have to go out and play with passion and pride every night. I think we've done a good job of that lately."
Teuvo Teravainen, Lee Stempniak and Victor Rask scored, and Scott Darling made 17 saves for the Hurricanes (30-28-11), who have lost three of their past four games and are seven points behind the Devils for the second wild card into the playoffs from the East.

Carolina coach Bill Peters was hopeful the Hurricanes could build off their 3-2 win at the Chicago Blackhawks last Thursday, and said it's surprising to him that they haven't been able to string together strong performances to climb the standings.
"It's frustrating to a certain degree, too," Peters said. "Obviously, there are degrees of disappointment there too."
Vesey scored on a short side, high blocker shot from the left circle off the rush at 12:15 of the third period to give the Rangers a 4-3 lead.
Zuccarello scored an empty-net goal at 17:23 to make it 5-3 before Vesey completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal at 19:36 to extend the lead to 6-3.
Zuccarello scored at 9:06 of the first period to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead.

Teravainen scored at 14:32 to tie it 1-1.
Vesey scored at 1:52 of the second period to make it 2-1. Buchnevich won the face-off in the right circle before passing across to Vesey, who kicked the puck to his stick and shot past Darling from in close.
Stempniak scored off a rebound at 7:48 to tie it 2-2.
Vladislav Namestnikov scored at 11:51 to make it 3-2 off a deflection from Buchnevich's shot from the point six seconds into a power play.

Rask tied it 3-3 with a power-play goal at 8:23 of the third period.
"It seemed like we were chasing the game a lot," Peters said. "Every time we got it tied up they would score within three, four, five minutes and we were chasing again."

Goal of the game

Vesey's goal at 12:15 of the third period.

Save of the game

Georgiev's save on Sebastian Aho at 15:18 of the third period.

Highlight of the game

Vesey's goal at 19:36 of the third period.

They said it

"We still think we are going to make the playoffs and we believe we can, but it gets harder with each loss. We have to put this one behind us, get ready tomorrow for a very good Boston team, start getting wins and collecting points." -- Hurricanes forward Lee Stempniak
"Tonight, you had what you get a lot in this league, the difference was goaltending. Their goaltender had a tough night and our young goaltender had a good night. He made some timely saves and we got a couple of goals there that I'm sure their guy would like to have back." -- Rangers coach Alain Vigneault

Need to know

The Rangers have won 15 consecutive home games against the Hurricanes. … Vesey's only hat trick in college came on Jan. 15, 2016, when he was a senior at Harvard against St. Lawrence University. … Rangers defenseman Tony DeAngelo left the game with 12:28 remaining in the second period because of an ankle injury. Vigneault said he will get an MRI on Tuesday. … The Hurricanes re-assigned Valentin Zykov to Charlotte of the American Hockey League prior to the game after recalling him Sunday.

What's next

Hurricanes: Host the Boston Bruins on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; SN1, SNE, SNO, FS-CR, NESN, NHL.TV)
Rangers:Host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, NHL.TV)