Kevin Hayes had a pair of assists for the Rangers, and Pavel Buchnevich, playing himself into a prominent role late in the game, picked up a helper on the game-winner.
The Rangers now have four wins out of their last five games; Zibanejad has scored the winner in all of them. This time it was a thing of beauty, with Zuccarello buying time behind the goal line for Zibanejad to beat his man to a scoring area and then undress Keith Kinkaid with a deke to his backhand.
"It's nice to be able to contribute, and nice to have Zucc back. We've seen the chemistry before and we saw it again tonight," Zibanejad said. "It's a fun line to play with. We're playing I would say fun hockey. We're moving the puck, we're moving (our feet), we're skating out there and we're finding each other. It seems to be working right now."
Zuccarello was no certainty to suit up for this game - a foot infection kept him out of Tuesday's Garden match with the Flyers, and the Rangers warmed up 19 skaters on Thursday in case Zuccarello didn't feel he could go. But once he gave the thumbs-up to skate in his 499th game as a Ranger, he went on to set up the last three goals the Blueshirts scored, and in his first game in 12 days, skated 22:41 to lead all Rangers.
"I kept looking after the period and I'm like, 'Boy, he's playing a lot of minutes, I've got to cut him back.' But he didn't give me any reason not to put him out there," Quinn said. "He never looked tired and he kept playing. I'm going to keep playing him."
As for Zibanejad, if his third goal to win it was the play of the night, then his first goal was not far behind, because it was the moment the game turned for the Rangers. Down a pair following a trio of first-period penalties, the Rangers got a power play of their own when Johansson was booked for interference with 6.2 seconds left in the first. It seemed likely the Rangers would start the second with a man-advantage; instead, Zibanejad won a faceoff back to Hayes, and with time winding down and a massive lane opening up, Hayes wound and fired, and Zibanejad reached out and put a tip on it to beat Kinkaid (21 saves).