OVERNIGHT SNAG
Zuccarello struggling to quickly become scorer
TWENTY minutes or so before coach David Quinn was talking about how players will have to change their games in order to score, player Mats Zuccarello coincidentally was talking about the very same thing. Except a bit differently. “I’ve never been a big goal scorer, so I’m not really worried about scoring,” Zuccarello, stuck on zero through eight games, but with a club-leading six points, told The Post following practice. “I think I’m playing well defensively and on the [penalty kill]. But I’m not saying that I’m playing well enough, because if I were, I’d be creating more chances and maybe we’d have more goals. I know that.
“Everyone tells me to shoot all the time, like for eight years. I’m trying. But just because we’ve lost some goal scorers [in trades and free agency], I can’t change my game. I’m trying my best to help us win, but it’s hard to tell someone to suddenly become a shooter.” And there’s the rub. It not only applies to Zuccarello, but to pass-first Kevin Hayes, and to perimeter-guy Ryan Spooner, the more finesse-oriented Vladislav Namestnikov (though No. 90 regularly crashed the net throughout Sunday’s 4-1 defeat to Calgary), and to Pavel Buchnevich, who spends too much time on the outside.
Quinn, who designed job-specific drills for practice in which the players’ goal was to get to the front of the net and stop there as to be in position to bury second chances, is conducting an orchestra filled with flautists when what he craves is guys who play percussion. It’s a tough way to go.
“It’s changing mindsets of how to achieve offense at this level,” the coach said.
OK, that could apply to Buchnevich or Filip Chytil or Hayes or maybe Jimmy Vesey. But what about the vets who have years in this league?
“They have to learn,” Quinn said. “We’re going to do everything we can to get them to learn. That’s my job. Keep asking and demanding and hopefully the light will go off.”
Or, alternately, maybe the red light will go on.
Quinn was asking and demanding while repeatedly interrupting Monday’s practice to get across his point. “Go to the net — not behind it!” he exclaimed at one juncture.
The Rangers have scored two goals or fewer during regulation time in seven of their eight games entering Tuesday’s Garden match against the 1-2-3 Panthers. They have scored three, five-on-five goals in their past four games and five in their last five. Goal-scoring issues should not be a surprise, however, for the current roster accumulated a sum of 169 NHL goals last year, 30 fewer than the worstin-show Sabres.
“The scoring chances were there [against the Flames] but with every scoring chance, there’s something we don’t do that would allow the scoring chance to be a better scoring chance,” Quinn said. “If it’s an ‘A’ chance, it would be a better ‘A’ chance that would end up in the back of the net or a ‘B’ chance that could become an ‘A’ chance.
“Whether it’s not stopping at the net, one stick-handle before you shoot it, not being physical enough on the puck, a half step or two slow off the wall; whatever it may be.”
Zuccarello has 15 shots on 32 attempts. Those numbers are relatively consistent to the ones he has posted through an NHL career that began in 2010. The winger will skate on the top line with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider against the Puddy Tats.
“Just trying to get more offense,” Quinn said. “I’ll be interested to see how [Kreider, Zibanejad and Zuccarello] play. It’s a little different look. Zukey’s got a great stick and great mind.”
Good luck, though, trying to change it. larry.brooks@nypost.com