New York. Mika Zibanejad celebrated his birthday at Madison Square Garden last night.
He scored two goals — and even played one goal — in the New York Rangers’ win over Florida, so he now has a career-best 250 complete strikeout in the world’s league under his belt.
– Of course it’s fun, but I try not to think about my career when I’m in the middle of it, the star core tells Sportbladet after the 6-2 win.
It was a rather strange duel that they had in Manhattan, New York Rangers and Florida Panthers. The home team fired remarkably few shots in the first and second periods, but led 3-1 after 40 minutes – and eventually won 6-2.
You can call it efficiency. The most effective was Mika Zibanejad. He scored on the power play in the first period with his patented direct shot and sent another puck behind Alex Lyon on the counterattack in the second – then assisted on Adam Fox’s hit.
“Obviously it’s good to put the disc there when you have the chance,” he says when we meet him next.
– If I feel like I got a good hit on the direct shot? Yes sure. It’s not easy and since opponents often spot me it so happens that I don’t get any chances at all but tonight Panarin did a pretty good preparatory job so I got space to shoot it and like I said I felt it right away it was a good hit .
With the two cones, the 29-year-old Stockholmer reached the 250-goal record.
– Of course it’s fun, but I try not to think about my career when I’m in the middle of it. He grins, I hope I have a few good years left.
Furthermore it:
After trailing 5-2 in the third period, with nearly eight minutes left, Florida head coach Paul Morris made the bold decision to pull goaltender Lyon and go all-out in a six-man comeback on the ice.
It didn’t work. In contrast, Rangers goalkeeper Igor Sejstyorkin almost slipped a puck into the empty box on the other side of the ice – but it was a few centimeters wide.
– It was worth the risk, but ‘Lindy’ (Ryan Lindgren) told me I couldn’t score my first goal before him, he says with a wide smile.