"Justifies his salary": Panarin scored four points in the match against Pittsburgh and surpassed Jagr's achievement

New York Rangers forward Artemy Panarin played another outstanding match in the National Hockey League.

He has four points at home with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and in just four last games, the striker has made 11 effective moves.

At the same time, he came in second place for the season in terms of average points scored per match.

For the Rangers, where the Russian players also include goalkeepers Igor Shesterkin and Alexander Georgiev, as well as forwards Pavel Buchnevich and Vitaly Kravtsov, it was a difficult time to fight for participation in the Stanley Cup.

Before Pittsburgh arrived, New Yorkers were sixth in the division, five points behind the playoffs.

At the same time, the “Boston Bruins”, which still owns the last ticket, have two games in reserve.

The Rangers have had their biggest problems this season with the Penguins, with just five points in six games.

But this time the game from the very beginning went under the dictation of the ice owners.

Less than half of the period had passed when David Quinn's charges took the lead 3-0, and Panarin scored two points for himself.

Colin Blackwell helped to earn the first of them - after the transfer of the Russian, he entered the zone and threw the puck into Mike Matheson's skate, which made it ricocheted into the goal.

Then Panarin scored himself, as if throwing from the left circle during the majority draw.

This goal was the 12th for the Russian for the season.

Pittsburgh was weakened by injuries of a number of players, including Evgeny Malkin, and were able to respond quickly with only one goal.

After just 40 seconds, the guests themselves took advantage of the numerical superiority and opened the Shesterkin goal.

But before the end of the first period, the Rangers regained the advantage of three goals, and Panarin helped them again.

When playing the majority, the Russian found himself in the left circle, but this time he decided not to throw, but to give the puck to the other flank, where Ryan Strom was accurate.

In the next period, the guests distinguished themselves again, but the difference in the score did not increase.

However, one should not blame Shesterkin for this.

In the first 40 minutes of the match, he saved 29 shots, despite the fact that his team during the same time inflicted only 18. In the third period, the Rangers still rarely attacked, but their effectiveness reached incredible heights - seven shots led to three more goals ...

The author of one of them was the defender Adam Fox - in the minority, he scored his third point per match and extended his own striking streak to 11 games.

And the last goal for the team was scored by Pavel Buchnevich.

Together with Philip Khytil and Panarin, he fled into a counterattack and, after a cool transfer of partners, upset the Pittsburgh goalkeepers for the eighth time.

Finally, the guests scored the fourth goal, after which Shesterkin recorded 41 saves for himself, repeating his best result of the season.

For his four points in the match, Panarin was recognized as the first star of the meeting.

This season, he has already made 40 scoring actions, which averages 1.48 points - according to this indicator, he came in second, behind only Connor McDavid (1.64).

At the same time, Panarin continues to fight in absentia with the Rangers legends for the right to be considered the best newcomer to the team in history.

In his first 96 matches, he scored 135 points - he has long surpassed Wayne Gretzky's schedule, and after the meeting with the Penguins left behind him and Jaromir Jagr.

The next target for the Russian striker is Mark Messier - he had 137 points in the first 100 matches.

The head coach of the Rangers, David Quinn, did not somehow single out the leader of his team, but only noted the game of Shesterkin.

According to him, hockey players still need to improve their game in order to achieve victories more often.

“I must say the game was weird.

I think we were very lucky.

We implemented the majority very well (three out of three realizations -

) and found a way to win today.

But I think that if we talk to our guys, we will understand: in order to win constantly, we need to play better than now.

So it's tough to win in this league, and we're definitely happy with two points.

But you know, our goalkeeper made a lot of great saves, and we were very lucky today, ”said Quinn.

Panarin was praised by NBC columnist James O'Brien, who called the Russian the first star of the game of the day.

He noted that Panarin could have been able to score more than one hundred points for two seasons in a row, if not for the coronavirus pandemic, which shortened the regular season.

“When we remember which players' legacy has suffered due to the pandemic, Panarin may be one of them.

You can easily say that he spent two seasons, gaining about a hundred points in each, but he needs to play at an even higher level to ever achieve this in the future.

Panarin justifies his average annual salary of $ 11.64 million and, perhaps, deserves even more.

With the 29-year-old's contract running until 2026, the time may come when people start complaining about the salary cap.

Part of the logic behind big contracts is to get the payoff as quickly as possible.

The main thing for the Rangers will be to raise their level to that of Panarin, while he is still an elite player, "the journalist wrote.