Video: Butt, butt, goal. The NHL was dazzled by the unconventional interplay of the Rangers hockey players

The riders led in the duel with Carolina from the 3rd minute, when Zibanejad also made his mark, but the opponent soon equalized.

They got home advantage on the power play in the 10th minute and it took just eight seconds for them to capitalize on it. And it was a great interplay.

Vincent Trocheck found Chris Kreider with a backhand in front of the goal, who also blindly moved the puck to Zibanejad, thus tripping goalkeeper Frederik Andersen, and the Swedish forward easily hit the open cage.

By the end of the third period, New York increased the lead, when Trocheck completed the combination of the mentioned trio again in the next power play.

“We wanted to get off to a good start. We had enough time to rest, and I think it showed in our performance,” praised Zibanejad, whose team defeated Washington in the shortest possible time, 4-0, in the first round of the playoffs.

“We were all looking forward to the match and we played really well in the beginning,” added the Swedish centre, who was deservedly named the first star of the match.

After a goalless second half, Czech forward Martin Nečas scored at the beginning of the third period after a straightforward action and a selfless pass by Jordan Martinook between the defenders.

Artemij Panarin soon raised the score again, and Seth Jarvis only managed to correct the score.

The winners of the regular season thus celebrated a 4:3 triumph and won the fifth duel in this year’s elimination battles.

“The first period was the deciding factor. We’ve been talking all year that we need to catch the start of the game and we can’t get goals down. We didn’t do either of those today,” complained Carolina captain Jordan Staal.

“After twenty minutes we were losing 1:3 and we scored two goals at a numerical disadvantage,” he regretted the unsuccessful start to the series.