Coach Rod Brind’Amour hasn’t seen much of a change in Artemi Panarin’s game in recent years, but broadly speaking, Carolina’s coach is right.
Panarin was a superstar then, he’s still a superstar now, and he hasn’t completely overhauled the way he plays.
But during the 2022 playoffs, which began with a 96-point season and seven games against the Hurricanes, Panarin remained mostly silent on the ice, publicly ruminating on “stupid offense at the blue line” and scoring just one goal. ended the series. 3 assists.
Panarin, who finished the season with 120 points on Sunday, kept doing what he did in the first round when the Rangers beat the Capitals. Namely, he scored the winning goal and influenced play all night in a 4-3 win. For Blueshirts at the Garden.
So maybe things are a little different than the last time these teams met in the playoffs.
For example, Panarin may have missed a third-period chance to score on Sunday. That’s when Panarin came in from the rush and saw Vincent Trocheck to his right.
When Panarin was told that on Sunday, he winced.
“I read too many comments on TikTok,” he joked.
“I don’t actually know,” he said. “In my mind, before I went in, I was thinking of giving him a backhand pass, but at the last moment I made the shot. Somehow, the puck [goes] in. ”
As Panarin hinted, this wasn’t the prettiest goal he’s ever scored.
Frederik Andersen should have scored the puck instead of passing it through his pads, and who knows if the netminder would have stopped it. But he didn’t, and the Rangers went on to win by a goal from Panarin.
“When the players start to feed off of that and grow, I think it’s no different than what happened throughout the regular season,” Rangers manager Peter Laviolette said. “He’s a guy who has led this team offensively. The playoffs just started and he’s doing what he did in the regular season.”
Panarin’s 2023-24 regular season was his best on Broadway, but carrying that performance into the postseason has been a challenge over the past few years.
They had a not-so-bad, but not great, performance in the 2022 conference finals run, followed by a no-goal performance in the 2023 series against the Devils.
This is new. And for the Rangers, that’s pretty great.
