March 28, 2024

Artemi Panarin’s four goals lead Rangers to win over elite Hurricanes

RALEIGH, N.C. — Maybe Vincent Trocheck can play with Artemi Panarin after all.

Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant made a late second-period adjustment in his line combinations Saturday night by reuniting Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad while shifting Panarin back to Trocheck’s left side with his team trailing by a goal. After that, Panarin recorded the first four-goal night of his career, pacing the Rangers to a 6-2 victory over the Hurricanes.

Trocheck had a monster game in his first return to the city he represented for the previous three seasons before signing his seven-year free-agent deal with the Rangers last summer. He played with the same tenacity, bite and effectiveness he had for the ’Canes during their seven-game, second-round playoff loss to the Blueshirts last year, in which he was a standout.

“Coming back for the first time to Carolina playing against these guys got the emotions going,” Trocheck said after recording two assists and a plus-four rating in 16:05 of ice time. “It did.”

Artemi Panarin hugs celebrating teammates after scoring one of his four goals in the Rangers' 6-2 win over the Hurricanes.
Artemi Panarin hugs celebrating teammates after scoring one of his four goals in the Rangers’ 6-2 win over the Hurricanes.
Getty Images

The Rangers, who have won five straight and are 20-4-3 since Dec. 5, spent shifts at a time in their own end through the first 35 minutes, with Carolina owning possession time. Indeed, the Blueshirts mustered only two shots through the first 17:48 of the second period, both within seconds of the same shift at 4:04 and 4:25. The margin was just 2-1 against only because of the brilliance of Jaroslav Halak, who won his seventh straight start.

Then, with 3:23 remaining in the second period, Gallant flipped Panarin and Kreider, a move that was merited. By the way, it worked.

“I know what Kreids does with Mika all the time and I just thought we got a little stale there and things weren’t going so well,” Gallant said. “But that’s the thing with those guys, you can mix them and match them and it’s not going to hurt anything at all.

“They’re all skilled and talented players so it’s not like I was putting a fourth-line guy or an extra guy in the second line. It worked for Bread.”

Artemi Panarin scores one of his four goals on a slap shot during the Rangers' win.
Artemi Panarin scores one of his four goals on a slap shot during the Rangers’ win.
USA TODAY Sports

It was Panarin, who entered the game with a seven-game goal-scoring drought and a confidence level of, “Minus-20,” as he told The Post, who capitalized on a neat relay from Trocheck to rifle one past Freddie Andersson to knot the score at 2-2 at 17:49 of the second on the club’s first shot in 13:24.

“And then when I scored, I tried to shoot high glove and it went in low glove, so I took it and felt better,” said Panarin, who buried a rebound of a Braden Schneider shot to give the Blueshirts a 3-2 lead at 4:33 of the third before his hat-trick goal on a left-wing drive extended the lead to 4-2 at 15:59. The fourth goal came on a spinner from the slot to close the scoring at 18:56 after Kaapo Kakko had gotten an empty-netter.

“First time I scored four goals since I was a kid,” said Panarin, who added an assist for the fourth five-point night of his career. “Against my grandpa.”

Gallant might have made the adjustment to reunite Kreider and Zibanejad — who recorded his eighth goal in nine games on a first-period power play — but it was the Trocheck-Panarin connection (with Jimmy Vesey on the right) that sang.

Mika Zibanejad (No. 93, left) scores a goal during the Rangers' win.
Mika Zibanejad (No. 93, left) scores a goal during the Rangers’ win.
NHLI via Getty Images

“Let me be honest with you,” Trocheck told The Post when asked about the perceived chemistry issues between him and Panarin. “The first 25 games I played for Carolina [after being acquired from Florida], I had three points. I had a system that was completely different that took time to adjust to.

“I came here, got off to a really hot start but defensively I thought I was garbage playing a completely different system. It took time. And then after five or 10 or so games that didn’t go the way we wanted to as a line, we started hearing that we didn’t mesh well together. That comes with it, but maybe you start to squeeze your stick a little hard.

“But at the end of the day, there’s nobody on this team I don’t mesh with, per se. Bread is a phenomenal hockey player. He plays a certain style and I play a little bit different of a style. But in a game, having both styles together works out.

“If it’s me being a little more of a grinder, getting in on forecheck more, making sure I get him the puck with space, I think that only adds to the team.”

It sure did on Saturday.

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