Kevin Hayes has plenty of Rangers memories, but the one that stuck first came in warmups before his NHL debut - and it involved Henrik Lundqvist, a hard shot, and a quick lesson in how things worked around “The King.”
Hayes, who is now a free agent after playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins last season, made his NHL debut for the Rangers against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 12, 2014. He had sat out the team’s first two games, and with his father in the building, the rookie stepped onto the ice without realizing the unwritten rule he was about to violate.
Near the end of warmups, Mats Zuccarello set him up with a puck. Hayes didn’t waste it.
“I get a puck. I absolutely rip it on Hank,” Hayes recalled. “High, bar down.”
Martin St. Louis was immediately on him, asking, “What the f*** are you doing?”
That’s when Hayes learned warmups weren’t for testing Lundqvist - they were for getting him ready. Hayes joked that after that goal before his debut, he spent the next 349 games firing the puck straight into Lundqvist’s glove. He also said Lundqvist was one of the most competitive teammates he ever had, the kind of goalie who would keep drilling the same play in practice until he fixed the problem.
That January 2019 appearance on Spittin Chicklets, recorded during Hayes’ final season on Broadway, had more than just the Lundqvist story. Hayes also opened up about the Rangers’ prank-heavy locker room and one of the team’s most beloved figures, Zuccarello.
The prank war stories were as nasty as they were funny. Hayes said Zuccarello once scooped up dirty ice shavings from the rink and shoved them into Marc Staal’s mouth and face.
Staal answered back by using a power tool to drill Zuccarello’s shoes into his locker. Nobody owned up to it, so Zuccarello checked the security footage.
“All you see is big Staalzy just walking in with a power tool,” Hayes said.
Hayes had his own shoe disaster, too. During his rookie season, Ryan “Bugsy” Malone thought Hayes had said something to him in the shower.
Hayes said he was talking to someone else, but Malone had already decided on payback. After Hayes bought a new pair of shoes with one of his first NHL paychecks, Malone filled them with shaving cream.
Hayes said he had to throw them out and leave practice in sandals.
“He didn’t miss an inch of my shoes,” Hayes said.
Zuccarello, Hayes said, was one of the most sarcastic players around, but also one of the biggest team-first guys in the room. He organized dinners and other get-togethers without needing credit for it, and that carried over into the offseason when he invited teammates to his annual charity event in Norway.
Hayes went overseas with Chris Kreider, Derick Brassard and Carl Hagelin, plus at least one other Rangers teammate he couldn’t remember. Once they landed in Oslo, the group got a reminder of how popular Zuccarello was back home.
“We got off the flight, and there’s a huge billboard with our pictures,” Hayes said. “Not like a sign - a billboard in the airport welcoming us to Norway.”
The trip continued with a short flight to Stavanger for the charity game, which was sold out, and a helicopter tour through the Norwegian fjords. As Hayes put it: “If you go around with Zucc,” Hayes said, “you get anything you want.”
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