Rangers, Sabres celebrate Christmas, family on 'Road to Winter Classic'

While Mats Zuccarello searches for a Christmas tree at a pop-up tree shop on the streets of Manhattan, he realizes he is missing a key component: a topper.
With no stars in sight, Zuccarello opts for the decorative bow atop one of the other trees at the shop, slipping it off to bring it home. Along with grabbing a tree stand, he now has all he needs, especially with a younger brother, Fabian, to throw the mid-sized tree over his shoulder to get it home after losing at the ultimate brotherly decision maker, rock-paper-scissors.

It is Christmas in the city and, tree now set up, Zuccarello can turn to his other priority: the New York Rangers.
"Obviously I'm not the most skilled or best hockey player in the world," Zuccarello said in the opening scenes of the third episode of NBCSN's "Road to the Winter Classic," which airs at 11:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Full episodes will be available on
YouTube.com/NHL
and short-form versions of the 30-minute, four-week series will run on Facebook Watch via the NHL's Show Page at
Facebook.com/BestoftheNHL
every Friday.
"I'm not like [Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney] Crosby or anyone like that. For me to have a chance at playing in this league, I have to give 100 percent every shift and kind of be a rat a little bit and create some energy for a team. Playing for the New York Rangers, like everyone who plays for that team, it's a dream come true and we're blessed to be able to be a part of the New York Rangers. I think the whole team feels that way, and we're excited to get outside and play some hockey."

Outside, yes. The Rangers and Buffalo Sabres are quickly approaching the 2018 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic at Citi Field on Jan. 1 (1 p.m. ET; NBC, SN, TVA Sports, NHL.TV) and Christmastime is a harbinger of what's to come.
It's a time for family, a time for celebrating and decorating, even with the red velvet bow tie atop the Zuccarello tree. It's a time for music, we see the guitar stylings of Buffalo Sabres center Ryan O'Reilly and the self-taught drum efforts of Rangers center Boo Nieves, but it's also a time for hockey.
The Sabres continue to struggle through December. The Rangers also haven't been playing as well as they would have hoped, but all that goes away once the two teams step onto the ice for the Winter Classic. For that, the slate is wiped clean and there is a fierce focus on that day, that afternoon, that game.
The joy of playing outside, the joy of having family there to watch. For Rangers defenseman Marc Staal, his wife, Lindsay (who he met on the first day of ninth grade in art class) and their three kids, who we see running around their house in Connecticut. For Sabres defenseman Zach Bogosian, his wife Bianca and daughter Mila, who we see putting on her first pair of bright pink ice skates.
To be fair, Bianca, a former professional soccer player, isn't convinced that Mila shouldn't have gotten her first pair of cleats before her first pair of skates.
"She puts skates on before she put cleats on," Bianca says, as Zach cheers. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."

But it's hard to argue with it when we hear Zach's reaction.
"I still have my first pair hanging up in my bedroom in my parents' house," he said. "I didn't realize how special the moment was until now. It's pretty awesome."
For O'Reilly, that is more tangible this year than ever before. His fiancée, Dayna Douros, was due to give birth on Dec. 29. As Douros says in the episode, "I was saying we'd love to have it at the Winter Classic. So sometime soon."
The baby, a boy, came a bit early, arriving on Dec. 23, so along with all the other families of the Rangers and Sabres, there will be one new, very small addition to the viewing audience.