Winger Panarin a finalist for NHLPA award for top player
This type of affirmation was not necessary for anyone who paid the slightest attention to Artemi Panarin and the 2019-20 Rangers.
Nevertheless, the winger’s first year in New York following the richest per-year free-agent commitment in franchise history was consecrated on Tuesday with a nomination for the NHLPA’s Ted Lindsay Award that goes to the league’s “Most Outstanding Player” as voted by the players.
Panarin, who recorded 95 points (32-63) in 69 games while leading the league in even-strength points and assists, is one of three finalists for the trophy, joined by Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl and Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon. It would be no surprise at all if these three forwards are also named finalists for the Hart Trophy when that announcement is made by the league next week.
Panarin said that he narrowed his focus on his craft this season by reading less press and paying less attention to social media. All he missed were the figurative roses being tossed at his feet throughout the greatest season of the 28-year-old’s five-year career after signing his his- toric seven-year, $81.5 million deal.
The Russian drove the Rangers until Mika Zibanejad grabbed a share of the wheel. Combining with Ryan Strome in the middle and Jesper Fast on the right for the final 18 matches and 32 of the last 34, Panarin was on for 128 of the Blueshirts’ 233 goals (54.9 percent) and was plus-36. Indeed, he became the first player in 10 seasons to record at least 95 points with at least a plus-35. The Russian Rockette established himself as one of the upper-echelon players in the world.
His production was only part of his value with the Rangers. His personality
Seasons have natural rhythms. Players report to training camp in September after a summer’s work. The athlete who is not in shape from Day 1 rarely catches up and is just as apt to find himself in the AHL as on his NHL team’s top six.
It is fast from the start and it gets faster by increments as calendar pages turn, taking a leap at Thanksgiving, another following the Christmas hiatus, and yet another at the trade deadline with playoff races in focus. And when the playoffs start? It’s like a different sport.
There are signposts marking the journey at which players can be traditionally evaluated and there are various crescendos that build through a season conventionally monitored by coaching staffs. It is never a color-by-numbers operation, but there is familiarity to the calendar tied to the evolving pace.
But there is nothing natural about 2020 and there will be next to nothing conventional about this NHL Return to Play that is two days into camp and a little more than two weeks away from the opening games of the Stanley Cup tournament qualifying round.
So there will be no easing into this. There is nothing familiar here. David Quinn and his staff are not preparing the Rangers for a marathon. The coach and his assistants are preparing the team to hit the ground running as best they can in a vacuum of comparative information.
Players did not report on equal footing. Some were able to skate for weeks in Sweden. Some were confined to their homes for long stretches during the break in action. But where does that leave the team two days into camp and only a little over two weeks away from their Aug. 1 Game
1 against Carolina?
“That’s a good question. I mean, we’re trying to find that out,” Quinn said on a Zoom call following a 50-minute practice that included 20 minrepresented an equally important chunk.
“I think a lot of guys would say he’s a funny guy. He’s not overly loud in the dressing room but when he says something, a lot of times, he’s got a very dry sense of humor, he’s witty, he’s sarcastic and he’s as sharp as a tack,” Chris Kreider said. “He’s a very good teammate.”
➤ Start times for Rangers’ first three qualifying-round games have been set. Game 1, Aug. 1, Noon; Game 2, Aug. 3, Noon; Game 3, Aug. 4, Rangers listed as home team, 8 p.m. Times have not been set for the if necessary Game 4 (home) on
Aug. 6 or Game 5 on Aug. 8. The Rangers will meet the Islanders in an exhibition game on July 29 at 8 p.m. All games will be played at Toronto.
➤ When the Rangers broke into a scrimmage for the final 20 minutes of practice, taxi-squad defensemen Libor Hajek and K’Andre Miller joined the group to fill out a fourman blue line a side. Miller, who is ineligible to participate in the tournament, played his off, right-side. The 22-year-old Hajek, whom the organization still holds in high regard, would likely be the first man up if one of the club’s six varsity defensemen becomes unfit to play.