KANATA, Ontario _ Mika Zibanejad has never had a bad word to say about the Ottawa Senators, or the city of Ottawa. He enjoyed his time in Canada's capital, Zibanejad always said.
And then, Saturday night, he treated his old team like he was really, really mad at them.
Zibanejad, who was traded from the Senators to the Rangers, along with an exchange of draft picks, for Derick Brassard in the summer of 2016, recorded a hat trick against his old club on Saturday, toying with the rebuilding Senators and scoring on the power play, at even strength and then shorthanded.
Zibanejad added an assist, on linemate Artemi Panarin's third-period power play goal, as the Rangers improved to 2-0 on the young season with a 4-1 victory over the Senators, who lost their home opener and fell to 0-2-0.
Early in the week, Rangers coach David Quinn said he wanted to have a little bit more consistency in his line combinations, and he added he hoped the players' play would allow him to not have to change his lines all the time, as he did last season.
After just one game, however, Quinn shuffled his defense pairs, breaking up the No. 1 pair of Jacob Trouba and Brady Skjei in order to separate his two 21-year-old rookies, Adam Fox and Libor Hajek, for Saturday's game. Both rookies seemed to suffer some jitters working as the third pair in Thursday's win over Winnipeg.
"I think when you're a rookie and you've got an older _ older meaning, a guy that's played in the league while (Trouba)'s 25, when you got an older defenseman, or experienced defenseman, it just gives you a little bit more of a calming effect," Quinn said before the game, referring to Hajek playing with Trouba. "I just think that's human nature and helps, and I think that will help two of our younger defensemen."
Hajek, who admitted he was nervous Thursday, called it "a dream come true" to play with Trouba, who he said he tried to emulate when he was growing up.
"He played in the (World) Under-18s in the Czech Republic; I went there with my dad to watch him, and he was one of the best defensemen there, so I was watching him almost every game," Hajek a left-handed shooter, said of the right-handed-shooting Trouba. "I have a lot to learn from him, so I'm really happy to play with him."
Hajek and Trouba were the second pair, behind the duo of Marc Staal and Tony DeAngelo, who remained intact. Skjei and Fox were the third pair.
The Rangers took an early 1-0 lead on Zibanejad's first goal, a power-play rebound of a Trouba shot at 6:04 of the first period. Ottawa tied it when Brady Tkachuk _ Quinn's former star forward at Boston University _ managed to deflect a long shot from Thomas Chabot past goalie Alexandar Georgiev at 12:14.
But Zibanejad scored twice more in the second period, the first time finishing a sweet tic-tac-toe play where he took a diagonal feed from Artemi Panarin and relayed a diagonal to Pavel Buchnevich, who, rather than shoot, returned the puck to Zibanejad for the easy finish at 9:53. Zibanejad completed the hat trick with his shorthander at 12:07, when he pounced on a loose puck in center ice after Brendan Smith had blocked a shot, and skated away on a two-on-one with Lias Andersson. Zibanejad waited for the Ottawa Erik Brannstrom, to drop to the ice to block a pass, then dangled around him and fired a shot past Sens goalie Craig Anderson to make it 3-1.
