It is April 25, 2015, the day after Zuccarello has been hit in the head with a puck during Game 5 of the first round series against the Pens. He has a skull fracture, a brain contusion and brain bleeding. Hagelin, still a Ranger, and Derick Brassard walk into Zuccarellos hospital room. Hagelin can take it from there:
It was the day after it happened, Hagelin told the Daily News Wednesday morning at CONSOL Energy Center. Me and Brass went to the team doctors and asked if it was OK to go see him. He had a family friend there taking care of him, too, a woman that I knew from before. So me and Brass walked in and he was in the intensive care unit, so you walk in youre like, Whoa. You see people who are almost dead in there.
So you walk in, Hagelin continued, and you see him and he cant really move his mouth. Like hell laugh and then only one side of his mouth is working, because he got hit on his left side of his head, which controls the right side of the body. And then when he was trying to talk nothing really came out, hed say something and it was like shhzzzz.
Hagelin makes a buzzing sound through gritted teeth.
You could see that he knew what was going on so he got frustrated, and then Brass broke down and then I broke down because of the whole mix of everything, Hagelin said. It was an emotional day.
Zuccarello has never spoken about that day in English.