The player at the top of the Hart Trophy leaderboard after a month’s worth of games is no other than Artemi Panarin, who has elevated his game to previously unforeseen heights. That should tell you something about this player who has been dancing on the pinhead of NHL excellence for nearly a decade.
The 32-year-old is driving the Rangers, perhaps the most pleasant surprise in the league at 10-2-1. Panarin has returned unencumbered by last spring’s disappointment through which, we have been told, there was visible tension between the winger and head coach Gerard Gallant — who parted ways with the club within a week after elimination by the Devils.
Last year has all gone away, like dandruff.
There was a healthy dose of skepticism of how Panarin would react to incoming coach Peter Laviolette’s more structured system that features a neutral-zone lock. A month in, the Breadman has excelled, opening the season with a 13-game point-streak (8-14-22), reinvigorated while invigorating linemate Alexis Lafreniere at the same time.
First there was Fil Chytil in the middle and now there is Vincent Trocheck. For now, though, this is Panarin’s creation. The other night after Colorado-New Jersey, I was listening to the TNT guys, and I believe it was Anson Carter who made the point that, incredibly, Nathan MacKinnon picks up speed and becomes faster when he has the puck on his stick.
Panarin consistently exhibits the same quality. He is exploding with the puck, and inside the offensive zone, while seeing everything. He has been dominant, he has been electric, he has been engaged and he has been joyful.
Four years ago in his first season as a Ranger, Panarin finished third in the voting for league MVP. A month into 2023-24, he is leading the exit polls.
When Michael McLeod and Dawson Mercer are New Jersey’s top two centers while Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier remain out of the lineup, it is tough to get a legit read on whether the Devils are capable of taking the next step.
But injuries aside, it is surely a legitimate take to be skeptical of the club’s ability to make significant noise with the barely sufficient netminding it is receiving from Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid even as team discipline and structure have evaporated without their stars in the middle.
Suddenly the Devils are playing team defense like the Rangers did when Lindy Ruff ran their blue line under Alain Vigneault and David Quinn. Suddenly the Devils are playing team defense like they did two and three years ago.
The goaltending tandem that has recorded the second-worst overall save percentage in the NHL (.915) and fifth-worst at five-on-five (.893), is not helping. The Devils last year ranked 11th overall at .904 and 14th at five-on-five at .916 percentage (stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.)
Connor Hellebuyck is off the table, but John Gibson’s return to form with the fun-bunch Ducks may ignite interest from GM Tom Fitzgerald, though the 30-year-old netminder will have three years remaining at an annual $6.4 million cap hit following this season.
There is time for this all to settle and there is no need to rush.
As poorly as the Devils looked this week, they are not, after all, Edmonton.
That’s the tag line for NHL disappointments: Well, at least we’re not the Oilers.
Lou Lamoriello made nine in-season coaching changes over his 28 years running the Devils, but none in his three years as GM of the Maple Leafs and none in his five-plus years with the Islanders.
So far, that is.
Lane Lambert may not be the problem — Noah Dobson in 2018 is the last Islanders draft pick to make an impression while Mat Barzal in 2015 is the last drafted forward to make an impact — but there is no indication that the coach is (or has) the solution, either.
And as this may be Lamoriello’s last ride, I’d be shocked if he is going down with the status quo.
John Hynes, currently unoccupied after coming in as runner-up to Peter Laviolette in the Rangers’ coaching sweepstakes, never coached for Lamoriello in New Jersey but served a four-year term as Ray Shero’s hire after he ascended to the Devils GM role in 2015-16.
Two years ago, Jay Woodcock was a genius behind the Edmonton bench. That changed the moment GM Ken Holland presented the coach with the netminding tandem of Jack Campbell and Stuart Skinner.
This is the flawed Philadelphia model in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Bob Clarke was running the hockey show. Don’t bother to get quality in goal when you can settle for less.
It was always a bizarre philosophy given the fact that just the two Cups in franchise history, in 1974 and 1975, were a product of Bernie Parent’s incomparable Conn Smythe goaltending each year.
On a weekend where goaltenders Henrik Lundqvist, Mike Vernon and Tom Barrasso are celebrating their Hockey Hall of Fame inductions, it is the perfect time to note that the NHL save percentage of .903 is the lowest since 2005-06, the first year of the new-age rules in which power-play opportunities and goals surged.
At an aggregate .904 last year, the average save percentage has either remained the same or dipped nine straight seasons after the hitting high-water mark of .915 in both 2014-15 and 2015-16.
It might have been an under-the-radar move at the time, but the Bruins’ acquisition of Charlie Coyle from the Wild in exchange for Ryan Donato and a fifth-rounder engineered by GM Don Sweeney just ahead of the 2019 deadline represents one of the great trades of the past decade.
Coyle, an impactful bottom-six center for the most part, has become an impactful top-sixer in the wake of the Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retirements. He had recorded 160 points (61-99) in 319 matches for the B’s while being a perfect fit for the B’s underlying historical lunch-pail ethos.
Donato, meanwhile, lasted all of 84 games in Minnesota, posting 39 points (18-21) in 84 contests before moving onto San Jose, Seattle and now Chicago.
Finally, endorsing the need for protective equipment is all the rage these days, but then why did no fewer than a half-dozen Red Wings take pregame warmup at the Garden on Tuesday without wearing their helmets?