Getting rave reviews
Panarin, Trouba appear ready for bright lights of Broadway
ARIAN Gaborik set the gold standard for big-ticket free agents who sign with the Rangers. For after signing a fiveyear, $37.5 million deal on July 1, 2009, the Great Gabby shot out of the gate wearing the Blueshirt, scoring six goals in his first seven games, 11 in his first 13 and 19 in his first 22 matches en route to a career-best-equaling 42-goal season.
Artemi Panarin is a different breed with a different skill set. Whereas Gaborik was one of the NHL’s elite snipers and scorers, Panarin is one of the game’s great playmakers who can also sprinkle in a goal here and there, as he did off a dynamic move to give his team a 1-0 lead in Thursday’s 6-2 Garden victory over the Sabres.
The similarity, though, is in the way they responded to the spotlight under which big-name, big-money acquisitions operate in New York. By going out and playing their game. By accepting the responsibility that comes with the paycheck(s), which in this case will amount to an average of $11,642,857 for each of Panarin’s seven years under contract.
(I wondered on July 1 how long it would take me to memorize that number. Three-and-a-half months, it turns out.)
There can be debate, as there M was both externally and internally, about whether the Rangers were ready for Panarin. There is, however, no debate about whether Panarin was ready for the Rangers and New York.
The 27-year-old Russian has been a model teammate. He practices diligently. He is popular among his peers. He has been willing to move out of his comfort zone and conduct interviews in English with the journalists who report on the team.
Indeed, though Panarin on Wednesday said that he did not think he was playing especially well, suggesting he was at 70 on a scale of 100, you could run down a list of dozens of issues that had been plaguing the Rangers and you would never find No. 10 among them.
And the same can be said for Jacob Trouba, acquired in a trade from Winnipeg and then signed to a seven-year contract worth $8 million per as a restricted free agent. He also has accepted the responsibility.
“I think they’re very good at blocking out the surroundings and focusing on the group we have inside the room,” Henrik Lundqvist, who has seen them all come and go over the past 15 years, told The Post. “It’s not easy coming with that kind of pressure, but they both have done a great job with it.
“I’ve been very impressed. Both have come as advertised.”
Though Trouba is not yet been the straight-up, matchup guy everyone quite naturally envisioned when GM Jeff Gorton pulled off the trade to acquire him on June 17, that’s more a function of David Quinn’s desire to protect young left-side partner Libor Hajek than a commentary on No. 8. When Hajek, a bright spot through the first three weeks, is ready for the challenge, that will be the matchup pair.
Trouba has been a horse in New York, averaging an NHL 10th-highest 24:57 of ice time including Thursday’s whopping 26:46. He has made the first pass and he has been physical, exemplified by the whopping shoulder check he laid on Sam Reinhart late in the third period. It hasn’t been perfect back there, and No. 8 can be a bit erratic, but when a team spends as much time without the puck and in the defensive zone as have the Rangers, breakdowns become inevitable.
But what applies to Panarin applies to Trouba. You can run down that list of problems and you’d never find Trouba’s name on it.
This is no small thing. The hierarchy did its due diligence on the team’s two offseason marquee acquisitions but you never really know how an athlete is going to respond to huge money and the comfort/security of having that kind of long-term contract until he plays under it. You never quite know how he is going to handle the attendant pressure and the spotlight until he experiences it.
And you never quite know how a player is going to handle New York. Case in point: Mike Keane. Another: Scott Gomez.
“It’s a big boost to have the extra skill that [Panarin and Trouba] bring to the team,” said Lundqvist, outstanding in the 451st victory of his NHL career. “It brings confidence to the group when you have those kinds of top players. And when they’re great teammates, it means even more.”
So far, so good for Panarin and Trouba. Which is a very good thing for the Rangers, who need all the warm and fuzzies they can get.