Rangers' midseason trades helped jolt Artemi Panarin's game
Rangers left wing Artemi Panarin is congratulated by teammates after his goal against the Sabres in the second period of an NHL game at Madison Square Garden on Monday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Artemi Panarin wouldn’t go so far as to say the acquisitions of his longtime friends, Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane, made him happier and a better player for the Rangers in the final two months of this season.
“No, I can't say that,’’ Panarin said in a conversation with Newsday this week, before the Rangers wrapped up their season Thursday against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Madison Square Garden. “I felt good when they came in, but I can't say I felt bad before then, because there were still good guys on the team.’’
But something certainly seemed to perk up about Panarin once the Rangers traded for the two right wings to bolster their top-six forward group. Before GM Chris Drury landed Tarasenko and defenseman Niko Mikkola from St. Louis on Feb. 9, shipping a first-round pick, a third-rounder, forward Sammy Blais and minor-leaguer Hunter Skinner to the Blues, Panarin seemed to be just plugging along.
Through 51 games, he had 53 points, on 12 goals and 41 assists, a pace that projected to 19 goals and 85 points over a full, 82-game season. He had struggled to find chemistry with new center Vincent Trocheck, and he wasn’t particularly clicking with Mika Zibanejad, either.
But in Tarasenko’s first game with the Blueshirts, Panarin set up his fellow Russian for a tap-in goal on his second shift as a Ranger, and that started a 30-game stretch for Panarin in which he had 16 goals and 22 assists (38 points), giving him 28 goals and 91 points entering Thursday’s season finale. It is his third 90-point season in four years with the Rangers since joining them as a free agent in the summer of 2019.
Somewhere along the line, Panarin started to click with Zibanejad, and then Trocheck, too. In 11 consecutive games playing with Zibanejad and Tarasenko from March 12-31, Panarin had six goals and six assists. And then, playing the last five with Trocheck and Tarasenko, he had three goals and four assists.
Finding chemistry with Trocheck — with whom he’d played most of the first half of the season — wasn’t something that just happened all of a sudden one day, Panarin said. Rather, it was something that developed over time.
“Just, more time talking to each other,’’ he said. “Especially right now with Vladdy. We’re trying to figure out where you have to be in a game. I feel like we’ve [gotten to] know each other more and more, and then of course . . . when you play all year together, you understand where this guy can go, or he understands where I can go.’’
Trocheck agreed, but added that having Tarasenko on the line made a difference, too.
“Playing with ‘Bread’ [Panarin] from the start of the season, you just had to get used to certain things and the tendencies that he has,’’ Trocheck said. “There's a learning curve for both of us to try to get used to each other. And Vladdy stepped in and kind of filled a void that we might have needed [to be filled] early on. He does a lot of the little things that you don't really notice, but are a huge help to a line. And the three of us have been working well together.’’
With the playoffs starting in a few days, Panarin said his focus has shifted to getting ready for the postseason. The 31-year-old took some criticism last season for not producing big numbers in the playoffs. He had six goals, 10 assists and was a minus-5 in 20 games in the playoffs, though he did score the game-winning power-play goal in Game 7 against the Penguins in the first round.
He’s feeling good now, though, and he’s had a strong finish to the season. And he hopes that will carry into the postseason.
“I feel like I can play better,’’ he said. “I hope I'm not wrong.’’
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
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