The disher extraordinaire became the scorer Saturday night in York when the Rangers’ Mats Zuccarello struck twice in a 5-2 win over the New Jersey Devils.
The win tightened up the Metropolitan Division race even more as the Rangers are just 
two points back of the Devils.
The Rangers improved to 16-11-2 and are not so much charging up the division ladder as plodding upward; the division has been playing well but inconsistency remains an issues across the teams.
The Rangers’ slow start to the season did not help; they won two of three intra-divisional games this week.
“Every game right now is a big game,” Zuccarello said. “It’s a tight race. Even though we’re only in December, it’s a tough division and you need every point you can get.”
Henrik Lundqvist got the win on 26 saves; the win came a night after the Rangers dropped a 4-2 decision to the Capitals in Washington Friday night.
“This is what we needed. That’s the good part about this league, when you lose a game you don’t have a lot of time to walk around and think about it. You just regroup and focus on the next one. You get a challenge right away. We played really well,” Lundqvist said after the win.
New York’s Jesper Fast had a goal in the win; it was third straight game with a strike.
“He’s like a hidden secret,” Rangers forward Rick Nash said of Fast. “Not too many people around the League know about him, but he can do it all.”
Nash had two assists on the night and was robbed twice on brilliant saves by New Jersey’s Keith Kinkaid.
Jimmy Vesey and Kevin Hayes also scored for the Rangers.
“We’ve built confidence over the last month after our rocky start,” the Rangers’ Marc Staal said of the Rangers, who were 3-7-2 to begin the season. “I feel like we believe we can win every game, and when you’re going through a stretch like we are now before Christmas, that’s important.”
The Devils dropped to 16-9-4 on back-to-back losses and got goals from Damon Severson and Miles Wood.
“You play soft and you play loose, you have no chance to win,” Devils head coach Hynes said. “That was tonight’s game. We were soft all over the ice. Too many soft individuals. We played a loose game, that’s what happens. That’s the game right there.”
Zuccarello’s second goal came off a strip of the puck from Severson at the Devils blueline; he poked the puck, spun around and drove the net uncontested for the goal.
“There were a lot of great efforts out there,” Lundqvist said. “It feels good.”
[WATCH: All Devils vs. Rangers highlights]
“We gave them a few too easy ones. We didn’t get off to the start that we wanted, but the second period, we played pretty well. We created a lot, but we were down two in the third, we still have a chance there. We just couldn’t get anything going,” New Jersey’s Andy Greene
Kinkaid made 34 saves in the loss.
“I don’t think we gave ourselves a chance at all,” Kinkaid said. “You look at the turnovers we gave up and their penalty kill outworked our power play too.”
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