For Artemy Panarin, this season of the National Hockey League has already become special and unique. It was in this game that the Russian forward reached the 100-point mark for the first time in his adult professional career. But Khlebushek doesn’t even think about stopping.
Panarin in the company of the greats The New York Rangers superstar has been performing at some cosmic level since the very beginning of the season. The only person above this cosmos is Nikita Kucherov, but the leader of the Tampa Bay Lightning is a real and living phenomenon. Panarin has been delighting us all these years with his talent and brilliant hockey, and in this “regular season” he has also increased his confidence. 45 goals to date literally scream about it.
In today's match against the New Jersey Devils, Artemy scored not only another goal, but also an assist. The Russian opened the scoring in the match, and with his assist he led the Rangers to the winning goal. Khlebushka's winning streak now totals seven matches. During this period, he scored a total of 16 points (7+9). In total, Artemy has 110 points six games before the end of the regular season. Panarin is only the seventh Russian hockey player in NHL history to reach this mark. Previously, only Nikita Kucherov (3 times, a record), Alexander Ovechkin (2 times) and Pavel Bure, Sergei Fedorov, Evgeniy Malkin and Alexander Mogilny (all once).
In the history of the Rangers, Artemy rose to clear first place in terms of productive seasons for the club. Only Jaromir Jagr is ahead of the Russian. In the 2005/06 season, the famous Czech scored as many as 123 points. 13 points in six matches to repeat the record? Theoretically, Panarin is very capable of this.
It all started with an epic brawl. Relations between the Rangers and Devils have always been tense. Everything is in the spirit of derby. After two previous meetings between the two rivals, one could expect that today's game would be eventful. Thanks for this we must say to Matt Rempe. The 21-year-old Canadian made a lot of noise this season, having fought with almost all the main thugs in the league, and in the last two matches against New Jersey he even threw elbows at his opponents. It is not surprising that today's match between both teams was not without a fight involving a young hooligan.
The fight happened as soon as the main referee of the match managed to make the starting throw-in. Several outfield players from the Rangers and Devils who were on the court immediately threw off their leggings and started hammering each other. As a result of these hand-to-hand combat lessons, four hockey players on each side received a match penalty and went to the locker room.
It was hot on the benches too. Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette supported the mood of his players and unleashed anger towards his counterpart. Acting Devils helmsman Travis Green was even a little taken aback by the behavior of an experienced specialist.
“To be honest, I don’t understand why he was so angry. He started screaming and received a natural reaction in response. But all this could have happened and not happen…” said Green, clearly pointing at Rempe.
Laviolette did not explain his behavior on the bench and limited himself, as he himself said, to a “vague answer”: “It’s just emotions.” And there were enough emotions for the whole game. The Rangers won the first period with a score of 2:0, conceded three times in a row in the second 20 minutes, and in the final period they regained the advantage and retained their lead in the race for the President's Cup. “New Jersey” clearly said goodbye to thoughts of fighting for the playoffs.
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