Mats how it goes
Zuccarello dealing with seeing buds traded
It’s been a month long of candid honesty from Mats Zuccarello, but this might be the most raw, emotional response he has had yet in the midst of the Rangers rebuild — which he surely has noticed included his own name in trade talks that will continue this summer.
“Obviously you get affected by that. You try to say you don’t care or you shouldn’t care, but we’re human beings, we have feelings,” Zuccarello told The Post after Saturday night’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Panthers in Sunrise, Fla.
The Rangers picked up one point on their two-game Florida swing before a day off Sunday and the resumption of action Monday at the Garden against the Hurricanes.
“Everyone around us talks about it — your friends, your family — and of course you kind of have that in back of your mind,” the 30-year-old Norwegian said. “And when you don’t get traded yourself, but you see your friends that you’ve been here [with] seven, eight years with, it’s tough, you know? But you have to accept it and move on. It’s part of the game.”
Zuccarello has done what he could to move on, playing some of his best hockey since the deadline. He scored in each of the two games down in the sun- shine, but his 12 goals and 46 points total with 13 games remaining in the season still have him on pace for one of the worst statistical full seasons of his career.
“Honestly, I don’t really care about the goals,” he said. “We lose two in a row, and that’s all that matters. I think after the trading deadline and everything that’s come down since then, I think my game has been better than it was before. All around, the whole season hasn’t been good enough. Haven’t scored enough. But it is what it is — sometimes it goes like that. I think it’s better as of late, but as far as goal scoring when you lose, it’s not a big thing.”
It has not be lost on the Rangers either that Zuccarello was so affected by the departures of his good friends over the past two seasons. That started with the trade of best buddy Derick Brassard two summers ago, continued with Derek Stepan moving last summer, then a few weeks ago with the fire sale that in- cluded captain Ryan McDonagh, Rick Nash, J.T. Miller and Michael Grabner.
“He’s been working hard all year long, but for whatever reason, with the puck, he’s had a hard time making the plays we normally see him [make],” coach Alain Vigneault said. “He’s a very sensitive young man, and I think everything that has happened around our group has had some effect on him. But at the end of the day, he’s got to play well for our team to have success.”
Zuccarello has one more year left on his contract with a salarycap hit of $4.5 million, and he could prove to be an attractive trade piece leading up to the June 22 draft or as a rental near the deadline next season. It’s hard to know what the Rangers will look like by then, with general manager Jeff Gorton having a ton of work in front of him while trying to sculpt a new team.
But it was clear something had to change, and it just happens Zuccarello is one of the four players remaining from when this run that started in 2012 — along with Henrik Lundqvist, Marc Staal and Chris Kreider.
“Obviously it’s tough to see your really good friends go, really good players,” Zuccarello said. “Frustrated and mad, but you know it’s part of the business, and you have to deal with it.”