Chris Kreider told teammates within earshot that he was going to score before they took the ice Thursday for the third period of Game 6 of their second-round series against the Hurricanes, with his team staring up at a two-goal deficit that would’ve forced a Game 7 at Madison Square Garden if it held up.
Not only did Kreider make good on his word, but the 33-year-old forward, the longest-tenured Ranger, single-handedly led the Blueshirts to victory by scoring two more goals than he initially predicted — for the first natural hat trick of his playoff career — to propel his team to a 5-3 win over Carolina and its second conference final berth in the last three years.
“You don’t really see him stress,” Kreider’s longtime linemate and best friend, Mika Zibanejad, said. “Even though sometimes it feels like we don’t have much, you don’t need much to get something going. He’s great at that, too, with our line, to kind of just keep calm and keep working and eventually it’ll come.
“I’m extremely happy for him to be able to perform like this in a game like this, but also very thankful for that performance to come at the right time.”
Kreider’s climb up the Rangers record books has not ceased this season.
After his series-clinching effort — which also included seven shots on goal, one block and two hits — Kreider became the third player in franchise history to score three goals in a single playoff period.
He now stands among greats Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky as the only Rangers to do it.
“That is just a monster third period,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “I mean, he put it on his back. He really delivered. It was more than him, but at the end of the day, we needed to score goals and this is what he does. This is what he did tonight. It was a pretty unbelievable performance by him, especially for a guy who wasn’t on the ice [Wednesday]. To come back and throw in a game like that, throw in a third period like that, is pretty special.”
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Kreider finished Round 2 with four goals and two assists, giving him seven goals and three assists in these playoffs.
The significance of his Game 6 performance in particular, however, is the kind that cements legacies.
With the Rangers on the verge of a return to the Garden for an anything-can-happen Game 7, Kreider took matters into his own hands.
Taking into consideration that he had to miss the Rangers’ practice Wednesday for “maintenance” purposes, it made Kreider’s performance all the more impressive.
“He put the team on his back,” Barclay Goodrow said. “He’s been doing it for as long as I’ve been here. I’ve said whenever we need something in big moments, he’s getting it done for us. It’s great to play with a guy like that.”
