Rod Brind’Amour has not noticed much of a change in Artemi Panarin’s game over the past couple years and in broad strokes, the Carolina coach is correct.
Panarin was a superstar then, is a superstar now and has not overhauled the way he plays.
But over seven games against the Hurricanes in the 2022 playoffs coming off a 96-point season, Panarin was mostly quiet on the ice, ruminated publicly on doing “stupid s–t at the blue line” and finished the series with a mere goal and three assists.
Sunday, coming off a 120-point season, Panarin kept on doing what he did in the Rangers’ first-round sweep of the Capitals, which is to say scoring game-winning goals and impacting play throughout the night in a 4-3 victory for the Blueshirts at the Garden.
So maybe there is something a little different from when these teams last met in the playoffs.
For example, Panarin might have passed off the third-period chance he scored Sunday, when he came in off the rush and saw Vincent Trocheck to his right.
When that was put to Panarin on Sunday, he made a face.
“Reading too much comments on the TikTok,” he joked.
“I don’t know, actually,” he said. “In my mind, before when I go in, my mind was going backhand and try to make a pass to him and then last second, I decided to shoot it. Somehow, puck [goes] in.”
As Panarin alluded, this wasn’t the prettiest goal he’d ever scored.
Frederik Andersen should’ve had it instead of allowing the puck through his pads and if the netminder had stopped it, who knows. But he didn’t and the Rangers went on to win, with Panarin’s goal the difference.
“Your guys, I think when they start to feed off of that and build off of that, that’s nothing different than what’s happened through the course of the regular season,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “He’s a guy who has led this team offensively. Just the playoffs have now started and he’s just following through from what he did in the regular season.”
Panarin’s 2023-24 regular season was his best on Broadway, but carrying the performance over to the postseason has been the problem in years past.
There was a not-so-bad but not-so-great either performance in the 2022 run to the conference finals, then there was the goal-less 2023 series against the Devils.
This is new. And for the Rangers, it’s pretty spectacular.