The New York Rangers have defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning by a score of 7-3 at Amile Arena in Tampa Bay, Florida with help from a Derick Brassard Hat Trick.

The Rangers opened the scoring in the first period when, off a faceoff -- after Dan Boyle saved the puck from going out of the zone, J.T. Miller passed the puck to Brassard, who put it in the five-hole on the backhand to make it a 1-0 game, assisted by Miller and Boyle. 

With 4:30 left in the first period, Keith Yandle took a shot that was deflected off of Brown’s stick and went in. Yandle was assisted by Brassard and Rick Nash. On the power play with 2:41 left, Ryan Callahan beat the defense and beat Henrik Lundqvist to make it a 2-1 game.

There was no scoring, however, in the second period, but the third period was full of scoring. With under 7:10 left in the third, Nash passed it to Miller, who immediately gave it to Brassard, who was stopped by a sprawling Ben Bishop. However, Brassard then took it to the left of Bishop and passed it to Miller, who was sticking with it in front of the net and put it in the open net.

With about 14 minutes left, Dom Moore took a shot that James Sheppard, who made an absolutely great play by the pure fact that he was going hard to the net and cleaned up off his knee on the rebound, scored to put the Rangers up 4-1.

With 12:40 left, Nash made a great-effort play to force a turnover in the Tampa zone, where Miller took care of the loose puck and passed it to Brassard, who put it in the wide-open net for his second goal of the night (assisted by Miller and Nash) to make it 5-1. That would be the end of Bishop’s night. Bishop, who before the third period played amazingly, allowed three goals on five shots in the third period.

With 12:10 left off a faceoff win in the Rangers zone, Nikita Kucherov fired a laser past Lundqvist (assisted by Tyler Johnson) to make it a 5-2 game. With 9:39 left and the Rangers on the power play, Nash (assisted by Keith Yandle and J.T. Miller) put one past Andrei Vasilevsky to make it a 6-2 game. 

With 6:39 left, Kevin Klein got beaten badly, and Kucherov beat Lundqvist for his second goal of the night to make it a 6-3 game. He was assisted by Johnson and Nikita Nesterov. When Tampa’s net was empty, Brassard completed his hat trick with a goal from center ice. That goal made the game 7-3 and virtually over.

The last hat trick for the Rangers in the playoffs came from Michael Nylander in 2007 - the Atlanta Thrashers, who are now the Winnipeg Jets. In 1994, prior to Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Rangers and the Devils, with the Rangers trailing 3-2 in the series, Mark Messier famously said, “We Will Win Tonight”. Messier followed that up by a hat trick to send it to Game 7 in New York.

Game 7 between the Rangers and Lightning is Friday night. The Rangers tweeted “Another piece gets added to the #NYR puzzle!! #ChangeTheEnding” and “#NYR @hank30nyr gets the broadway hat.”