These are words Mika Zibanejad is going to live with, for good or for bad, or as long as he is a Ranger. He will forever be linked to Derick Brassard, for whom he was traded this summer, as “Big Game Brass” was sent north to his hometown Senators.
So before Zibanejad’s first postseason with the Blueshirts had started, he said this:
“Of course I am aware of what [Brassard] did in the playoffs, but they didn’t bring me here to be the next Brass,” Zibanejad said April 7.
Those words hung in the air as Zibanejad struggled mightily through the first three games of the first-round series against the Canadiens. But he finally took a step in the right direction, playing his best postseason game in a 2-1 victory in Game 4 on Tuesday night at the Garden, knotting the best-of-seven series at two games apiece going into Game 5 in Montreal on Thursday.
Oh, and it also happened to be his 24th birthday.
“I guess I have to play like it’s my birthday every game,” Zibanejad said. “Just more energy. Not that I haven’t had that before, but I think that I played in a way that kind of went back to watching videos from games before earlier in the year when I played like I wanted to, played like I’ve been expected to do. I felt like I came back to that today, and it was nice.”
Just one day prior, Zibanejad was doing his best to explain away what had happened thus far, and why he had shrunk under the more intense spotlight of the playoffs.
“I’ve been too passive for myself,” Zibanejad said after Monday’s practice. “The mistakes I’ve made is being way too passive and that’s not the type of player I am. I don’t know, if I had the answer, it wouldn’t look like that.”
Zibanejad’s first regular season on Broadway was defined by the broken leg he suffered Nov. 20, keeping him out for two months. Before that, he was a dynamic offensive center, putting up five goals and 15 points in the first 19 games. After that, his game has come only in spurts, and the good moments have been few and far between as he finished with 14 goals and 37 points in 56 games.
Yet he was reunited on an early-season line with Chris Krieder and Pavel Buchnevich, and they produced some good offensive shifts as they made some impressive plays with the puck.
see also
Rangers 22-year-old rookie provides a big lift
With their backs nearing the wall, Rangers coach Alain Vigneault…
“I think we talked about that for the whole team, but also for our line — just go out and play,” Zibanejad said. “We let loose and made plays when they were there. We put ourselves in a situation where we can play hockey rather than just back off. And more for the best.”
The trade was made by general manager Jeff Gorton not just as a zero-sum swap, but because Zibanejad is five years younger, on the final year of a contract carrying a $2.625 million salary-cap hit as opposed to Brassard’s $5 million hit that doesn’t expire until the end of the 2018-19 season. and cheaper. After this season is over, Zibanejad is going to be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights, and if his play had stayed at the same level and the season ended quickly, then it could have been a rather contentious negotiation.
But his hope was that this one game could get him back on track.
“It was a good, solid team effort,” Zibanejad said, “and I felt like for our line it was a good step in the right direction.”