The value of having a game-breaker in the lineup was never more apparent than last night when Marian Gaborik’s hat trick saved the Rangers from themselves and what would have been an unimaginably bad loss to the Islanders.
The elegant assassin’s three goals, the last of which broke a 5-5 draw at 14:35 of the third period, lifted the Blueshirts to a 6-5 win at the Coliseum in a match they had led 2-0 and 5-3, but nearly succeeded in giving away to an NHL club with a minor league roster.
“The game changed so many times in 60 minutes it was unbelievable,” said Henrik Lundqvist, who yielded two goals in the final 27:20 after replacing his shaky backup, Martin Biron, who had started. “It was like a game of ping pong.”
What was unbelievable was how comfortable and careless the Rangers became after dominating nearly all of the first period until Zenon Konopka snuck one in at 19:11. What was unbelievable was how casually the Blueshirts — hardly the most imposing team on earth — approached their opponents when all they needed to do was step on the Islanders’ throats.
If there were truly such a thing as a bad win in the NHL, this would have been an example of one.
“I thought we were really good in some things and godawful in some others,” Rangers coach John Tortorella said. “But it’s a great lesson to go through so many momentum swings and be able to win.”
Deficient without the puck and once again caught too often on odd-man rushes, the Brandon Dubinsky-Derek Stepan-Ryan Callahan unit a notable collectively guilty party, the Rangers persevered on the strength of The Great Gabby and linemates Sean Avery and Erik Christensen, who combined for four goals while going plus three as a unit.
If Gaborik, who has eight goals in 14 games — and a pair of tricks in his last 10 — was not his team’s best player, then Avery, who had three assists and dominated shifts winning and then controlling the puck, most certainly was.
Avery set up Christensen for his whippet of wrist shot that beat Rick DiPietro from the right circle for the first goal at 8:11. His backhand centering feed set up Gaborik in front at 3:31 of the third for a 5-3 lead. Avery, tied for the club lead with 12 assists, and then set up Gaborik’s winner by winning a puck battle against Rob Schremp and sending the puck to Christensen at the top, whose deflected shot was flicked in by Gaborik.
“Sean was given an opportunity [to play with Gaborik] and certainly seized it,” Tortorella said. “I thought Sean did a great job of forechecking and keeping the puck, and that Erik and Gabby followed by grinding.”
The Islanders attempted to get in Avery’s face all night to provoke him, but the amateurs failed to irritate the master. Indeed, one-time Ranger P.A. Parenteau is likely to regret his trash-talking spin in front of the Blueshirts’ bench after the Islanders had come back to tie at 5-5 at 14:10.
“P.A. skated by the bench and basically mocked us,” Avery, who created the winner on the next shift, told The Post. “It was the wrong move for a guy like that.
“He’s never going to get himself into a club in the city after I send out e-mails.”