Chris Kreider’s jersey number could end up hanging from the Madison Square Garden rafters one day. Artemi Panarin is sure to go down as perhaps not only the greatest free-agent signing in New York Rangers history, but one of the best such signings in the history of sports in the Big Apple. Mika Zibanejad represents one of the biggest trade steals the franchise has ever pulled off.
Yet there’s little question that the legacies of all three core Blueshirts forwards is very much on the line over the next couple of days – and, they hope, weeks.
Following another no-show performance in a disheartening 3-2 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers that evened the Eastern Conference Final at two games apiece, the trio of top-six stars find themselves at a crossroads – one that could lead to being forever tied to championship glory, or perhaps cement their personas as regular-season stars who couldn’t deliver consistently enough when it mattered most in the playoffs.
Career Ranger Kreider might have secured a spot for his No. 20 in MSG’s pinwheeled ceiling next to 1994 icons Brian Leetch, Mark Messier, Mike Richter and Adam Graves with his third-period hat trick that eliminated the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 6 of the second round. He might not join that foursome as a Stanley Cup winner if he doesn’t author more unforgettable moments like his three-goal outburst soon.
Rangers’ 3 Star Forwards Have Gone Silent vs. Panthers
Kreider is the club’s all-time leading playoff goal scorer and now has 47 in 121 career postseason contests, but he’s all but disappeared since Carolina, failing to record a point in the East Final. The drought harkens back to the bad old days of Kreider’s game, when breathtaking performances would be interspersed with long stretches of little to no impact. Kreider has largely put that behind him over the past three regular seasons, during which he’s recorded 127 goals and 79 assists, making this retro effort particularly ill-timed.
Panarin is among the top offensive players in the NHL, and he’s made his $11.6 million annual salary-cap hit through 2026 look like a relative bargain with 461 points in 350 games over five seasons in New York. He seemed determined at the outset of this postseason to erase the narrative that he’s a great regular-season player whose game doesn’t translate well to the playoffs, and off his career-best 125-point season, was doing just that through the first two rounds, posting four goals and seven assists in 10 games.
Then, the 2023 Panarin – the one who had no goals and two assists in a seven-game first-round loss to the New Jersey Devils – re-emerged. The Breadman has no goals in the series, though he has registered three assists, two of which came in the Game 4 loss. Perhaps it’s a sign that he’s about to start producing again, but it need to start happening quickly – as in Game 5 at MSG on May 30 with the Blueshirts’ season possibly hanging in the balance.
The pressure might be greatest on Zibanejad, who turned in a sub-par regular season by his standards and hasn’t scored a goal in the last nine games. He’s a minus-3 in the past three contests and really struggled in the past two, committing an unnecessary icing and losing the ensuing faceoff that led directly to Gustav Forsling’s tying goal in the third period of the Rangers’ 5-4 OT win in Game 3. He then threw an egregiously bad cross-ice pass in the extra period of Game 4 that forced teammate Blake Wheeler to commit a penalty on the resulting turnover and Panthers break-in. Florida won the game on the ensuing power play.
Zibanejad, who former general manager Jeff Gorton acquired from the Ottawa Senators in the summer of 2016 in a fleecing of a trade, still has 14 points in 14 playoff games this spring. It appears, however, that he’s losing the matchup with a fellow premium center for the third straight postseason. In the 2022 East Final, it was the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Anthony Cirelli who helped hold him scoreless over the final three games – all Lightning wins. New Jersey’s Nico Hischier limited Zibanejad to a goal and three assists in their seven games last year, with Zibanejad going pointless in three of the last four contests.
Related: Rangers’ Goodrow Proving His Worth With Great Playoff Performance
This year, it’s Selke Trophy winner Sasha Barkov that Zibanejad is struggling to solve. It’s a tall order, no doubt, but matchups between teams’ top players are generally where playoff series are won and lost.
And that’s the point for Zibanejad, Kreider and Panarin – all three are accomplished stars. There can be no excuses if they and the Rangers want to get past this rough-and-tumble Panthers outfit and into the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in a decade. A team’s best players have to be the best players on the ice for any team to lift the chalice – and there’s no doubt Zibanejad, Kreider and Panarin know that.
“We’ve got to do a better job advancing pucks up the ice and establishing O-zone presence,” said Kreider, one of three players on the Rangers roster who has played in a Stanley Cup Final. “A lot of that falls on me. I’ve got to be able to get in there, win pucks, get my body on pucks, move my feet and allow us to get up the ice and start rolling and cutting back and making some plays at the net.” (From ‘As Panthers Even Series, Rangers Need More From Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Top Players’, The Athletic, 5/29/24)
Said Zibanejad after Game 4: “I don’t think anyone wants to play in their own zone that much. At the end of the day, we know what we have to do better. We know what we have to do more of and the recipe to get the game our way and to kind of tilt the ice the other way and go on the offensive.”
Blueshirts Trio Needs to Respond the Way the Heroes of 1994 Did
Fourth-liner Barclay Goodrow’s evoking of his championship Tampa Bay days has been stunning, as he’s scored six goals to give the Rangers the kind of secondary offense that’s so critical to a title run. Yet such bottom-six contributions won’t be nearly enough to defeat Florida if they don’t go hand-in-hand with the Blueshirts’ stars playing like stars again – and fast.
The 1994 quartet of retired numbers did just that despite staring down the crushing pressure of ending a 54-year Stanley Cup drought. Leetch was the Conn Smythe Trophy winner with 34 points in 23 playoff games that spring. Messier’s Game 6 hat trick against the Devils that saved that Rangers’ season overshadows his 30 points in that postseason. Graves recorded 10 goals and seven assists.
Igor Shesterkin is for sure playing the way Richter did 30 years ago, but for all his brilliance, the 2022 Vezina Trophy winner can’t do it by himself.
The Rangers risk wasting that, wasting another dominant performance from Shesterkin, wasting an amazing regular season in which they recorded 55 wins and 114 points on the strength of their depth and resilience and high-end forwards. It’s clear that defenseman Adam Fox, the Leetch of this Blueshirts roster, isn’t right physically, meaning that the Rangers need even more from the rest of their personnel.
It’s yet another challenge, and a big one, but that’s what being the last team standing at the end of the NHL postseason tournament is all about. The Rangers have the horses and the mental fortitude to right the ship, the latter of which has defined their season. The 1994 Blueshirts had their own reckoning as they faced elimination by a marvelous Devils team in Game 6 on the road, as some subpar play and internal turmoil pushed that group to the brink. Their stars rescued them from it, putting the club back on course for a championship.
These Rangers won’t see their season end in Game 5, but a loss to the relentless Panthers on home ice might just seal their fate. The Blueshirts are facing their moment of crisis in these playoffs. How roster pillars like Kreider, Zibanejad and Panarin respond will have plenty to do with how this season ends – and possibly how they’ll be remembered when they’ve long since left the game.
