It’ll Be All About The Playoffs For Artemi Panarin

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post, Artemi Panarin — the best big-money free agent signing in franchise history and one of the three best in NHL history, with Zdeno Chara to Boston and Marian Hossa to Chicago — is having the best season of his career. He is relentlessly driving play while making sweet music with his brother from another continent, Alexis Lafreniere and hardscrabble Vincent Trocheck in the middle. He is creating space for himself to shoot the puck at a higher and more accurate rate than ever before. He has already established a personal best for goals in a season with 35 with 22 games remaining and his 82 points (35-47) leads the team by 26 (!!!) over Trocheck and Chris Kreider. He has been dazzling and responsible, a joy to watch and a joy with whom to interact. But his Rangers legacy won’t be defined by this. Instead, it will be defined by his work in this year’s playoffs following a washout first-round against the Devils last year and an underwhelming performance the previous season in the club’s run to the 2022 conference finals. It is going to be on him, and he knows it — the same way Rick Nash understood it last decade when, other than Henrik Lundqvist, he was the Rangers’ best player across his six-year tenure but is remembered most around these parts for scoring three goals on 83 shots during the 2014 charge to the Cup finals and 14 goals in 73 playoff games during his Broadway run. continued plus more topics on the Rangers...