The worst case scenario for the New York Rangers is losing Artemi Panarin for an extended period of time. He is their best player and their leading scorer. He is their offensive catalyst and forces the opposition to alter their defense, theoretically freeing other Rangers to have more room. He plays over 20 minutes a game every game. His skill makes his teammates better players.
How important is he to the team’s offense? The bottom six forwards have combined for six goals and 16 points. Panarin alone has five goals and 15 points. That’s a big chunk of the team’s offense.
The Rangers are off Thursday so we won’t know about the severity of Panarin’s injury until before the Boston game. You know that he will want to play, but he cannot risk making it worse, something that the team did against Boston when they put him out on the power play and then when he was mugged by Brad Marchand. You have to believe that Marchand was well aware that Panarin was ailing and was doing his best to make it worse.
How bad would it be?
How bad would it be if he is out for a while? It would be bad, but with one major change in the way the team is playing, it could be have less of an impact. You know what it is, since it is one of the biggest issues facing the 2021 Rangers. It’s Mika Zibanejad’s slow start.
The Rangers are treading water, barely able to hang onto a .500 record and they are doing it with Mika Zibanejad off to the second worst start of his career. Yes, it is the second worst start of his career. In 2014-15 with Ottawa, he had only two goals in his first 12 games compared to one goal and two assists this season. He rebounded to score 20 goals and 46 points that season.
Zibanejad had his best game of the season against the Bruins and came very close to scoring at least twice. He was dynamic in all three zones and although he is still passing up good scoring chances he looked like the Zibanejad of old. He admitted that in his postgame interview, saying “I felt like my old self today.”
If Zibanejad can start scoring like he did last season, it will go a long way towards filling any gap left by a Panarin injury. The only problem is that means the team will continue to stumble along since they need both Panarin and Zibanejad firing on all cylinders to be successful.