Russian super-scorer “New York Rangers” Artemi Panarin continues to amaze and drive the entire hockey community crazy. The Russian is in crazy shape and is having a truly phenomenal season. Over the past few months since the start of the championship, Artemy has rewritten a number of different records and captivated everyone with both his performance and impressive progress in the game under the leadership of the new Rangers coach Peter Laviolette. But the most important thing is that Panarin does not think of stopping there. He performs very consistently and continues to reach new and new heights.
During the current championship, Khlebushek established several scoring streaks, and approached the final match of 2023 with another one – a goal. Before the away meeting with the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Rangers leader scored in three matches in a row, scoring exactly one goal each. For complete beauty, it was necessary to check in with Andrei Vasilevsky and Nikita Kucherov. And Artemy accepted this challenge. True, even too much.
Not even two minutes had passed since the starting throw-in, when Panarin drove the puck into the net of Vasilevsky’s goal from close range. The best goalkeeper in the world in this situation could not do anything but simply watch the joy of his opponent, who exchanged his third dozen goals of the season.
This was not enough for Panarin. The Russian lacked one more effective performance to break the 100-point mark for the calendar year. It was expected that it would come with an assist, but Artemy was not destined to act as an assistant today, although there were chances for this. Instead, the Rangers leader closed the gestalt with another goal. And behind him – and another.
In the third period, with the score 3:1 in favor of the Blue Shirts, Artemy Panarin scored a double, first scoring a double and then a hat-trick – the second this season and the sixth in the Russian’s career in the NHL championships. All the pucks played by Khlebushka flew into the same goal. And every time after an impressive wrist shot from a Russian.
The two goals gave Panarin his 100th and 101st points of the calendar year, respectively. This is the second time in his Rangers career that Artemy has achieved such a result. He also recorded 101 hits in 2022. In the Blueshirts' rich club history, Panarin became only the second player to have at least two calendar years with a hundred points in each. The previous record was held by Mark Messier, with the Rangers legend scoring 108 points in 1992 and 1995 respectively.
“To be honest, I feel great after a game like this. I don't know what could be better than ending the year like this . We won the game, that’s important,” Panarin told reporters after the game.
Artemy is now one of the top three scorers in the NHL season’s top scorer race, where only he, Nikita Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon have 50 each. + points. Kucherov, by the way, also distinguished himself in today’s game – he scored the only Lightning goal in the match. The Russian is hot on the heels of the championship's best sniper Auston Matthews.
Panarin, according to all forecasts, should score more than 110 points for the season. Previously in his entire NHL career, Khlebushek had never reached the coveted hundred. Now it is shining brighter on the horizon, and with it the possible Hart Trophy. The whole league is talking about Panarin.
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