Game Recap: Hats for Mats as the Rangers top Toronto

Mats Zuccarello recorded his first career hat trick in a 3-1 victory over Toronto on Friday night. The team’s offense came from the top down, with Rick Nash and Derick Brassard picking up assists on all three of Zucarello’s goals, in addition to eight scoring chances between the three of them. Ryan McDonagh and Kevin Klein also played an exceptional game, with the captain leading the team in individual shot attempts and the pair helping to set up the play that led to Zuc’s second goal. Despite three less than stellar powerplays and a slight loss of momentum in the second period, the Rangers maintained their composure and continued to attack well into the third period. The Maple Leafs scored their only goal of the night late in the third period with their goalie pulled, after having an earlier goal waved off on a goalie interference call. It was a solid victory all around, with the top line and top defensive pairing leading the way.

Rangers 1, Maple Leafs 0

Rick Nash starts the play by entering the zone, and then has the puck chipped back to him down low by Dan Boyle after losing it. All of this play along the boards creates plenty of space for Derick Brassard to set up in the slot, where he receives the pass from Nash before sending it over to Zuccarello, who finishes it. The defense was all out of whack on this one, and the Rangers used the time and space afforded them to their advantage.

Rangers 2, Maple Leafs 0

The play begins with Ryan McDonagh sending the puck out from behind the net to his defense partner Kevin Klein, who chips it to a nicely positioned Rick Nash. Nash then flips it ahead to Brassard to set up an odd-man rush, breaking down the wing before hitting Zuccarello with an unreal backhand pass for the goal. A great play overall from the team’s top players, culminating in an excellent finish off a beautiful pass from Brassard.

Rangers 2, Maple Leafs 1

Toronto pulled their goalie late in the third looking to cut the lead and made some headway to that end with Joffrey Lupul’s deflection in front. This goal is fairly straightforward: Dion Phaneuf receives the puck along the blue line from Morgan Rielly and winds up a big shot with traffic in front, with Lupul getting the tip on it.

Rangers 3, Maple Leafs 1

This one’s another fairly straightforward goal. Nash makes a nice defensive play to scoop up the puck, passes it to Brassard down the middle, who then gives the assist to a breaking Mats Zuccarello as he completes the hat trick.

Five on Five Shot Attempts

Rangers had the advantage most of the night in shot attempts but lost pace a bit late in the second and early in the third, before reapplying themselves for the rest of the third period.

Five on Five Scoring Chances

This chart tells something of a different story, with the Rangers lacking the edge here for most of the night in scoring chances. Although the difference is more drastic, here again we see a slow second and early third period, before the Rangers regained some of their composure.

Individual Corsi

Here again we see a strong game from both the top line and defensive pairing, as well as solid performances from both Jesper Fast and Keith Yandle. On the Maple Leafs’ side of things, we can see that the Bozak line had a good night, as did the Leafs’ bottom two defensive pairings.

Shot Location

We can see here that the Maple Leafs made a large portion of their shot attempts from the outside, indicating a solid night defensively from the Rangers in terms of positioning. On the flip side, looking at the Rangers’ shot attempt locations, we see that they tend to be clustered down in front of the net, a high danger area for a team to be giving up shot attempts.

Although Toronto put up some fight midway through the game, the Rangers’ top players led the way to victory in Friday night’s 3-1 win. The star of the night was obviously Mats Zuccarello as he picked up his first hat trick, scoring all of his goals on assists from linemates Rick Nash and Derick Brassard. Hopefully the Rangers’ top players can keep the momentum going as they look forward to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night.