Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad are as potent a one-two punch the New York Rangers have featured in years. How good are they compared to past Ranger dynamic duos?
This suspended season featured spectacular seasons by Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad. Not knowing if the season will resume, we decided to take a look at how good they are compared to other top twosomes in franchise history. To even things out, we projected the totals over a full 82 games. That means how many goals, assists and points the players would have had if they had played the full 82 games.
Taking this season as an example, though Panarin had 32 goals, 63 assists and 95 points when play was suspended, that would project to 38 goals, 75 assists and 113 points in 82 games.
For Zibanejad, his 41 goals, 34 assists and 75 points in 57 games would project to amazing 59 goals, 49 assists and 108 points.
That mean, as a duo they would have 97 goals, 124 assists and 221 points. How does that compare to Ranger duos of the past?
Goals
Projected over an 82 game season, only three Ranger twosomes would have topped the 97 goals for Panarin and Zibanejad and all three topped the century mark. The top pair of all time was the duo of Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield of the 1971-72 Rangers. While Hadfield became the first fifty goal scorer in Rangers history, if Jean Ratelle had not broken his ankle he would be projected to score 60 goals. Hadfield would have had a couple more if he had played 82 games so the duo would have been good for 112 goals.
The second best twosome was in the same year and included the other member of the GAG line, Rod Gilbert. In an 82 game season, Ratelle and Gilbert would have scored 108 goals.
The only twosome to exceed 100 goals over 82 games was the duo of Mark Messier and Pat Verbeek. in 1995-96, if they had both played 82 games, they would have scored 100 goals.
Only one other twosome would have exceeded the 90 goal mark in 82 games. That would have been Walt Poddubny and Tomas Sandstrom in 1986-87 when their total would have been 94 goals.
Assists
While the assist total of 124 points for Zibanejad and Panarin is impressive, it is nowhere near the best ever for a pair of Rangers. That total was exceeded nine times in franchise history.
The total two-man total of all time is 157 assists, a number that would have been achieved by Brian Leetch and Mark Messier in 1991-92. In reality, the pair totaled 152 helpers with Leetch setting a franchise record of 80 assists.
It is the GAG line of the 1971-72 Rangers that features the second pairing. In this case, it was Ratelle and Gilbert who would have notched 143 assists in a full 82 games. That 143 total was equaled by the Stanley Cup champion team of 1993-94 when the twosome of Mark Messier and Sergei Zubov would have totaled 143 assists as well if they had both played a full 82 games.
Right behind them is the 1972-73 teaming of Ratelle and Hadfield who would have totaled 141 assists. In 1996-97 Brian Leetch and Wayne Gretzky would have teamed for 140 assists for the fourth best total.
Points
Where Panarin and Zibanejad really shine is in total points. If both players had played the full 82 games they would have totaled 221 points, a number exceeded only by two other duos, both on the GAG line in 1971-72.
The combination of Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield projected to score 253 points between them and right behind was the pair of Ratelle and Gilbert with 251 points. Only four other pairs exceeded the 200 points mark in a full 82 game season, highlighted by Leetch-Messier with 214 in 1991-92. The last pair to project to score 200 points was the duo of Jaromir Jagr and Michael Nylander with 202 points in 2005-06. Nylander had 79 points and Jagr had 123 points so they actually did score 202 points as they missed only one game between them.