NEWARK, N.J. _ It was cold outside, but inside, Mika Zibanejad was red hot.
The Rangers' No. 1 center recorded his second career hat trick, the third goal of which was a nifty dipsy-doodle move around defenders for the winner, as the Rangers rallied for a 4-3 victory over the Devils on Thursday night.
Facing the Devils for the first time this season, 50 games in, the Rangers fell behind 2-0 before Zibanejad's first two goals, both on the power play, tied the game. Then, they took the lead for the first time on Chris Kreider's 23rd goal of the season, a wrist shot from below the right wing faceoff dot that put them up 3-2 at 4:43 of the third period. But on the next shift, Rangers forward Jimmy Vesey gave the puck away in his own zone, and a couple passes later, Devils defenseman Egor Yakovlev tied it 3-3 at 5:36.
And so it was left to Zibanejad to be the hero for the Blueshirts on the night, and he played the role when he took a pass from the left corner by Mats Zuccarello (three assists) and weaved his way down the slot to slip a shot past Devils goalie and Long Island native Keith Kinkaid for his 20th goal of the season. Henrik Lundqvist, who made 19 saves, then played his part, preserving the lead with a big save with 24.4 seconds left to give the Rangers their first win of the post-All Star break portion of the schedule, and raise their record to 22-21-7.
After choosing to scratch forward Pavel Buchnevich and dress seven defensemen Tuesday in the Rangers' first game after the bye week/All Star break, coach David Quinn reinserted the 23-year-old winger to the lineup against the Devils.
"This is all about doing the little things, shift in and shift out," Quinn said when asked how he could be sure Buchnevich would indeed "play better," as Quinn had said he needed to. "It's understanding your responsibility, structurally; it's trying to do the right thing. Sometimes you're going to make mistakes, that's just going to happen, but when your intentions are the right intentions, your mistakes are a lot less frequent."
The Devils took a 2-0 lead on the strength of power-play goals by Nico Hischier, at 5:10 of the first, with Marc Staal in the box serving a holding penalty, and Marcus Johansson, at 16:18 of the period, with Jesper Fast sitting out a tripping call. On that one, Johansson and the Rangers' Neal Pionk both dove for a loose puck after Brian Boyle's shot clanged off the post and Lundqvist didn't have any idea where the puck was. Johansson beat Pionk to the puck and flicked it into the wide open net behind Lundqvist.
But then Johansson got called for an interference penalty with 6.2 seconds left in the period when he ran into Vlad Namestnikov on a faceoff, and Zibanejad won the faceoff back to Kevin Hayes and then deflected Hayes' right point shot past Kinkaid with 1.3 seconds left. Zibanejad's second power-play goal, at 16:36 of the second period, with Blake Coleman serving a hooking penalty, tied it, 2-2.
