Grand night for Gaborik: 5 goals

Bruce Bisping, Star Tribune

Marian Gaborik scores against New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist in the first period of Thursday's NHL game.

In a game for the ages, the Wild's star scored five goals -- the most by any NHL player in 11 years -- to ignite a thrilling victory over the Rangers.

By MICHAEL RUSSO, Star Tribune

Last update: December 23, 2007 - 8:56 PM

About the only thing Marian Gaborik didn't offer the 18,568 paying customers were free tickets to Saturday's game.

With the Broadway Blueshirts in town, the Wild star winger was the only player on center stage Thursday night during the Wild's 6-3 trouncing over the Rangers at Xcel Energy Center.

Showing signs of boiling over in recent weeks, Gaborik finally erupted like the Arenal Volcano. During one of those rare magical, historic evenings, Gaborik opened his big bag of tricks and came up with the NHL's greatest scoring game in almost 11 years and undeniably the greatest performance in Wild history.

Gaborik registered the franchise's first five-goal game and became the first NHLer to light the lamp five times since Detroit's Sergei Fedorov against Washington in an overtime game on Dec. 26, 1996.

"Shades of Pavel Bure," said Wild forward Mark Parrish, a former teammate of Bure's with Florida. "It was just like watching Bure in the day. I mean, Gabby was banking them in out of the air, scoring on breakaways, skating through everybody, making highlight-film goals.

"My God, he was doing it every which way tonight."

In a twist of fate or perhaps pure destiny, earlier Thursday, one of Gaborik's friends e-mailed him a YouTube video of Bure's five-goal performance for Russia against Finland at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano.

"I was joking, 'I've got to get five goals tonight,'" said Gaborik, who has 17 goals in his past 19 games. "I scored five goals back home [in Slovakia], but to score five goals in the NHL, it's totally a different experience. To reach it here with these guys and in front of our fans, it's just unbelievable. Wonderful experience."

Only two players have scored five against the Rangers, the last being Mario Lemieux in 1993. Gaborik also assisted on Pierre-Marc Bouchard's goal for his second career six-point night. All this against a Rangers team that entered the game having allowed the fewest goals in the NHL.

The exhausted crowd, many of which left into the cold without their hats thanks to Gaborik, barely had time to breathe, let alone sit.

"Every time Gabby touched the puck, it was just electric," defenseman Brent Burns said.

Said goalie Josh Harding, who made 32 saves for his fourth victory in a row, "I've never seen anything like that."

"When the crowd yelled his last shift and stood up and were clapping, I just had a flash, '[Hall of Famer Guy] Lafleur,'" coach Jacques Lemaire said.

With the Wild trailing 1-0, Gaborik scored three consecutive goals for a natural hat trick -- two during a 1 minute, 51 second span of the middle frame -- to notch his ninth career hat trick by 5:38 of the second.

Then, after Martin Skoula fell as if he slipped on a banana peel en route to Nigel Dawes' third-period goal that trimmed the Wild's lead to 4-3, Gaborik bailed his teammate out by scoring only 41 seconds later. "I was nervous after I screwed up," Skoula said.

Less than two minutes later, Gaborik scored his fifth goal and 18th of the season on a breakaway. "First goes in, second goes in, you feel good, confident," Gaborik said. "It just gets you going and going."

The result was the ninth victory in 12 games for the Northwest Division-leading Wild.

Said Rangers forward Brendan Shanahan, "We ran into a world-class hockey player who had the game of his life. I've seen a lot of him, and he's maybe one of the top three or four players in the game as far as being dangerous with the puck."

With goalie Henrik Lundqvist pulled, Stephen Valiquette robbed Gaborik on a possible sixth on a late 5-on-3.

"I think five's enough, no?" said linemate Pavol Demitra, who had two assists.

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