When a top-ranking player’s production is so far from the pale around the mid-season mark, the advice for him is to forget about the chase of numbers, because when it’s all said and done, the statistics just won’t line up .
But the second period of a hockey game at the Garden arrives on Wednesday night and Mika Zibanejad would disagree.
Because after eight weeks of wandering in the desert, Zibanejad exploded by three goals and three assists in the Rangers’ seven-goal blast in the intervening 20 minutes of a crushing 9-0 victory over the Flyers to equalize the NHL record by points in one period established by Bryan Trottier against the Blueshirts on December 23, 1978.
It was a backward performance for Zibanejad, returning to his extravagance of five goals against Capitals at the MSG on March 5, which represented the culmination of a season of 41 goals and 75 points (in no more than 57 games, no less) who had it on the precipice of stature above the title.
But then this season came. Then came the off-season challenges of training in a pandemic. Then came COVID-19, which attacked in early January and cost Zibanejad the first week of training camp.
Then came a season in which the 27-year-old Swede seemed almost never to have been rollerblading before; a 10-minute pointed bank in New Jersey on March 4; and the first 27 games, in which he scored a total of three goals and eight assists. Even recently, although the pivot game has improved, there has been a goal (and six assists) in the previous eight games.
Then, Wednesday night.
“Obviously it was not what everyone expected, including me, obviously, but I have only been trying to work and trust myself,” said Zibanejad, who scored a shorthanded goal, a power-play goal and a five to five goal during the explosion of the second period. “For the past week or so, I’ve been feeling better at my game and I’ve been getting a lot of support and all the help I need from the guys on the ice.”
Zibanejad scored the Blueshirts’ sixth, seventh and eighth goals, all against substitute goalkeeper Carter Hart. He scored a short shot with a foreke deke at 8:27, climbed over the top in power play at 14:29 and then completed the maneuver by going to the net on the right to finish a give-and-go with Chris Kreider at 18:37.
“I’m just trying to get over it. It was not easy. It is what it is, ”said Zibanejad. “But it is a game. Overall, I have been feeling a little better in the last few moments here. Obviously, production is a big part of that. “
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