Rangers’ Playoff Run Will Be Short if Panarin Doesn’t Improve Play

The disheartening defeats were hardly the fault of one man; no Ranger other than goaltender Igor Shesterkin was good in a 4-1 loss in Game 5 at Madison Square Garden on May 13, an utterly puzzling “effort” by the Presidents’ Trophy winners with a chance to close things out at home. Yet it’s Panarin who has seemingly been on a mission to put to bed the career-long storyline that he’s a regular-season lion and a postseason lamb, unable to duplicate, let alone raise, his game consistently enough to carry his team in a series.

Through the Rangers’ four-game sweep of the Washington Capitals in Round 1 and three tight victories over the Hurricanes, Panarin recorded four goals and four assists while playing with fire and verve and physicality. His through-the-legs tip-in early in the extra period of a 3-2 road victory May 9, his fourth game-winning goal of the playoffs, was the kind of moment only elite players can fashion.

Panarin Bears Heavy Burden in Getting Back on Track

That version of Panarin has since gone missing.

The Breadman hasn’t just been invisible offensively, like many of his teammates over the past two contests. He’s made a number of defensive mistakes that have proved costly – none more so than his failure to backcheck on Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s third-period go-ahead goal that proved to be the winner in Game 5.

If the Rangers are going finally close out Carolina in a series that they looked ready to put a bow on days ago, Panarin can’t resemble the player he was in Games 3 and 4. That’s because the 32-year-old is supposed to be one of the X-factors against the Hurricanes, a relentless team but one that doesn’t possess someone of quite Panarin’s caliber on its roster.

Panarin is the most talented offensive player on the ice in this series, and he showed it with two goals and four assists in the first three games of the series. If he doesn’t perform like that for the last one or two games against Carolina, there’s a real chance the Rangers won’t advance, and they certainly won’t be able to make a run at the Stanley Cup.

That’s a tough burden for one player to bear when his teammates have also been to blame, but it’s what Panarin’s capable of – and what he gets paid the big bucks to do.

If the pressure is more intense on Panarin for that reason, it’s ramped up to an even higher degree by his playoff history, in particular what happened last year. The no-show performance in the first round of a seven-game loss to the New Jersey Devils, when he recorded no goals and two assists in a series in which the Rangers won the first two games on the road, was only one of many by the Blueshirts. Like Games 4 and 5 against the Hurricanes, however, his was the most noticeable.

“There’s unique players in the game – and he’s one of them – they can be nonexistent and then next thing you know, they end the game for you,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “And they have that unique ability. Every time he’s on the ice, you notice him and he’s a threat as far as I’m concerned. You feel it. 

“I think we’ve maybe done a nice job just having that awareness. Like we know when he’s on the ice, you better be tight and I think that’s maybe part of the success we’ve had. We saw it in the one game. You give him a couple feet and it’s in your net. That’s what that kind of player can do for you.” (From Artemi Panarin’s Quiet Playoff Stretch Becoming a Rangers Question’, New York Post, 5/14/24)

Brind’Amour’s team, with its unique man-on-man defensive pressure, authored one of Panarin’s disappointing postseason performances in the second round in 2022, limiting the left wing to one goal and three assists in the Rangers’ seven-game victory. In doing so, the Hurricanes helped give life to a theory of how to contain Panarin in the playoffs: Limit his time and space to squelch his creativity and incomparable playmaking ability.

Panarin’s Familiar Playoff Demons Seem to Be Resurfacing

Executed properly, the theory goes, the guy who has averaged 1.2 points per game in his career and 1.3 for the Rangers becomes more ordinary. Panarin has 55 points in 66 career postseason games. Not bad, but not up to his regular-season standards.

The disaster against the speedy Devils didn’t do anything to put that way of thinking to bed, but Panarin seemed unburdened by the past as he got off to such a superlative start this spring. Now, it’s on him to show that the past two games were an anomaly, not a regression to the mean of sorts. He needs to make whatever adjustments are necessary, just as the Hurricanes have.

“We just, we weren’t good,” coach Peter Laviolette said after Game 5. “But I haven’t seen anything in particular (with him).”

Adding to the mystery of Panarin’s playoff issues is the fact that Carolina has hardly slowed him down during the regular season. Panarin has totaled 11 goals and 15 assists in 27 such matchups, including a four-goal, one-assist outburst in a 6-2 road victory Feb. 11, 2023.

Yet after his greatest regular season, one in which he set career highs with 49 goals and 120 points, the previous postseason version of Panarin has made a badly-timed appearance. That one mysteriously lacked the passion and determination of the first seven playoff games, when Panarin seemed obsessed with going through or around whatever defense opponents tried on him.

How long this other guy sticks around is solely up to the player in the blue No. 10 sweater. If Panarin can’t make this iteration of himself go away, starting in Game 6, the Rangers’ promising season could be heading for an end that resembles 2022-23 – only worse.