Didn’t see that one coming? The Rangers have had their share of eyebrow-raising hat tricks since 2010, and a few of them came from names that still make you do a double take.
Start with Michael Grabner, because he somehow stacked up three separate hat tricks in a 14-month stretch. His first came in a blowout of the Tampa Bay Lightning, then he put three past the Columbus Blue Jackets in a one-goal win, and later did it again in a blowout of the Carolina Hurricanes.
Grabner’s Rangers run is easy to underrate, but the numbers tell the story: 52 goals in his New York career, with nine of them packed into those three games. He was a force on the penalty kill, his speed torched defensemen, and he found plenty of ways to score.
Matt Puempel’s night belongs in the same conversation for pure shock value. His hat trick on 12-29-2016 is the one that sparked this whole look back, and it came against Arizona Coyotes goalie Mike Smith, who was visibly not enjoying the experience.
Puempel finished his NHL career with 11 goals in 87 games, which makes that three-goal night stand out even more. For him, that December game was clearly the peak.
Then there was Tony DeAngelo on 01-09-2020, a hat trick against the New Jersey Devils that sent Madison Square Garden into a strange kind of celebration. A defenseman getting three goals is rare enough on its own, and DeAngelo’s was the first by a Rangers defenseman since 1982.
No defenseman has done it for the Rangers since. Whatever else surrounded him, that part of the night was undeniable.
And from last season, Taylor Raddysh managed to get in on the list too. His hat trick against the San Jose Sharks helped get him off to a hot start, and it came during one of those games where everything the Rangers put toward the net seemed to go in.
The building had good energy, especially for a team that simply could not score at home at the time. But because this was the 2025-2026 Rangers, the night still ended in disappointment, with New York giving up an overtime winner.
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