DENVER — Marian Gaborik took great delight in pretending he did not remember that his last previous hat trick had come in that five-goal game against the Rangers and Henrik Lundqvist in Minnesota on Dec. 20, 2007.
“Oh, that’s right,” said the Great Gabby, chuckling after the 10th hat trick of his career propelled the Rangers to a 3-1 victory over the Avalanche here last night. “That was a long a time ago.”
And after his performance last night in which he was flying from the outset, it suddenly seems like a long time ago that No. 10 was mired in a slump in which he had scored once in 11 games, even if it were just last week.
“I kind of got into the zone and felt confident,” said Gaborik, who scored once in each period after scoring in the third period of Saturday 3-2 loss in Phoenix. “I was feeling it.”
Gaborik, fourth in the NHL with 33 goals, first beat goaltender Craig Anderson with a 25-foot wrist shot through the legs of the defending Brandon Yip at 13:53 of the first for the Rangers’ first, first-period goal in six games and thus, their first early lead in six games.
Over the course of the five-game regulation losing streak that ended last night, the Blueshirts had led for only a 31-second stretch of the third period of last Monday’s 4-2 Garden defeat to Pittsburgh.
“When you play with the lead it makes you more confident and more comfortable,” said Gaborik, who took two of the Rangers’ six minor penalties. “It was a huge moment.”
Gaborik made it 2-0 at 4:57 of the second by going to the left post to slam home a spectacular backhand centering feed from Vinny Prospal that came from behind the net.
“I knew he was going to pass to the near post,” Gaborik said. “We’ve talked about making that play when you go behind the net. “It was a great pass. It really was an empty net, with Anderson going to the other side.”
It was Prospal again who sprung Gaborik for the semi-break down the left wing on which he completed the trick by going five-hole at 9:17 of the third. As soon as the puck entered the net, the goodly number of Rangers fans in the building tosses a couple of dozen hats onto the ice, an unusual sight, to say the least, on the road.
“You could tell the first few shifts that Gabby was skating,” coach John Tortorella said. “We’ve been working with him not to get too far ahead [of the play], but to come back so that [the forwards] can come up together. “He has the hands, but it starts with his legs.”
Though obviously pleased with his own performance, Gaborik chose to focus on the team’s effort.
“You need urgency every game if you want to win,” he said. “We played well the last two periods in Phoenix, so before this game we talked about how we had to carry that energy to this game. Now we have to take it to the next game.”
* Tortorella: “It’s a little bit of a relief [to end the losing streak], not that we’ve gotten it all solved, we have a lot to work on, but I’m happy for the players that this takes a little bit of pressure off.
* The Rangers, who failed to score on a 1:40 five-on-three just 1:13 into the match, finished the night 0-for-6 on the power play.
They are 0-for-22 in the last six, 3-for-45 in the last 13 and 6-for-72 in the last 19. . . . Conversely, the Blueshirts killed all six Colorado power plays after going 7-for-7 in Phoenix.