RALEIGH, N.C. — There was both beauty and simplicity in Artemi Panarin’s Game 3 overtime winner here on Thursday when he backhanded a deflection through his legs off a relay from Vincent Trocheck.
Few players have the world-class ability to redirect the puck in that way. But every player in the league — in the world, actually — has the ability to go to the front of the net, which is where Panarin supposedly does not venture and which is exactly where No. 10 was when he scored.
It reminds me of the criticism that dogged another supremely talented No. 10, Marian Gaborik, who scored more than 40 goals in two of his three-plus seasons on Broadway yet somehow found the way to score twice from in front against the Rangers in the 2014 Cup final after having been traded to the Kings.
Maybe that was out of character for the Great Gabby. Maybe that was even somewhat out of character for Panarin. But not now. Not in the playoffs. Not on this Rangers team where buy-in is the password to success.
“You mention [Panarin] probably because the puck is on his stick mostly and he’s not the guy in front of the net but I do think that everybody has to do everything,” head coach Peter Laviolette said hours before his team sought to complete the sweep of the Canes in Saturday’s Game 4. “If you want to stay with him, he’s finishing hits in the corner.
“If you want to stay with him, he’s putting out his body and blocking shots. He’s broken a couple of sticks getting in front of shots, his stick’s busted and he’s got to go to the bench and get another one.
“So everyone has to do everything.”
That has been the formula for the Blueshirts, who took a 7-0 playoff record onto the ice on Saturday. It had been close to a pristine run until disquieting news surfaced about Filip Chytil, who made an apparent triumphant Game 3 return on Thursday following a 188-day absence related to post-concussion issues, but woke up Saturday with an “illness,” according to Laviolette.
“He felt great [Friday], went to the team meal,” the coach said. “Woke up this morning and didn’t feel well.”
If a bad thing is happening to a good person who is universally beloved by his teammates, that is just something the Rangers will have to navigate. It presents another obstacle. It presents another challenge.
The Blueshirts thought they had their most potent 20 on the ice for Game 3. Without Chytil, they would be going with a semblance of the lineup that finished first overall in the league with 114 points. It would be both consequential and heartbreaking if Chytil is down again, but that should not impact the club’s focus as they proceed.
“We find ourselves in situations where maybe other teams would get down but we have a lot of belief in this team,” Ryan Lindgren said. “I don’t know exactly what it is but it speaks to our leadership, our coaching staff and our belief in each other that no matter what happens we continue to play our style.”
The Rangers were plus-one for the playoffs on the penalty kill, scoring three shorthanded goals while allowing two on the power play. They were 15-for-15 in this series with a shortie against a Carolina squad that finished second in the NHL at 26.9 percent and went 5-for-15 against the Islanders in the five-game first round. The power play, blanked in Game 3, was 10-for-29 overall and ranked third at 34.5 percent.
“On the penalty kill, if there’s an opportunity they’ve got to look for offense. The power play has to make a difference,” Laviolette said. “Guys that are checkers, we have to have them pushing for offense.
“Everybody has got to chip in inside of a long playoff run do to their part and that kind of is the whole team in its entirety. You can’t pick and choose what you want to do.”
It is not business as usual for a team to sweep its first two opponents in best-of-sevens. In fact it had not happened since the NHL adopted this four-round playoff format in 1987. But the Rangers, who swept the Caps in the first round, did conduct business as usual in seeking to advance to the conference finals for the second time in three years and the fifth time in the last 13 seasons.
“We’re going about our business like we have every other game so far in the playoffs,” Laviolette said. “It’s been on point.”
