First the Rangers saw what they look like with a somewhat hobbled Artemi Panarin. Then they saw what they look like without their best player at all.
Neither was very pretty.
The Blueshirts played their first game this season with the injured Panarin on the sideline and suffered a 4-2 loss to the Islanders at the Garden on Tuesday night. It sent the Rangers into the 10-day break initially not knowing if Panarin was still going to be their representative at this weekend’s All-Star Game in St. Louis — eventually replaced by Chris Kreider — but knowing full well that they are hardly the same team when the superlative winger is not in the lineup.
“One guy makes a big difference, especially a guy who’s a superstar,” coach David Quinn said. “Obviously with him in the lineup, our lineup looks a lot different. The other team has to pay more attention to him, and in essence, you lose three players because the two guys he’s playing with aren’t as good as they would be with him there.”
Panarin has apparently been dealing with an upper-body injury for the past five days, according to Quinn, and he was questionable before he played in Sunday night’s last-minute 2-1 home loss to the Blue Jackets — arguably the most pedestrian game he has played in the spectacular opening 47 of his Rangers tenure (racking up 26 goals and 68 points).
The injury is something that Quinn said “he’s had an issue before with this, and it reoccured.” It’s hard to know how the break is going to affect him by the time the club returns for their next game all the way on Jan. 31. But Quinn did add that the Rangers “don’t think it’s long term,” which is about as close to a good sign as there was.
“It’s a blow, but every team goes through injuries,” Quinn said. “We’ve been fortunate in a lot of ways with injuries this year. I was confident we could win this hockey game without him — and we could have. But we’re obviously a much better hockey team with him.”
It might have been different if they had Panarin’s offensive talent early on, when the Rangers (23-21-4) were drastically outshooting the Islanders (29-15-5) but were unable to beat Thomas Greiss, who turned aside all 30 shots he faced in the opening 40 minutes and staked his team to a 4-0 lead. And it might have been different with Panarin’s playmaking ability late, with the Rangers getting two gifted power-play goals in a span of 1:47 late in the third to make it 4-2 without getting another even with goalie Alexandar Georgiev on the bench for the extra attacker.
“We miss [Panarin] tremendously,” said Chris Kreider, who is off to his first All-Star game after he scored the second power-play goal, his 17th on the season, with 4:28 left in regulation. “But you have to find a way.”
The Rangers were feeling pretty good about themselves having won four of five going into the Columbus game, which included two victories over the Islanders in this three-game midseason miniseries. And that good feeling seemed only to dissipate a little bit after this one, even if there was some lip service paid to keeping a good mental outlook going into such a long period without another game.
“It’s disappointing, because I thought we actually played pretty well,” Quinn said. “It was just one of those nights. They [the Islanders] were very opportunistic, and we weren’t.”
The Rangers ended up outshooting their rivals, 43-18, but Georgiev could only make 14 saves as his good run against the Islanders dried up. Josh Bailey and Anthony Beauvillier scored power-play goals exactly three minutes apart near the end of the first period, while Anders Lee added one at 9:52 of the second and Brock Nelson got an easy backdoor tap-in at 3:13 of the third to make it 4-0.
It was just too much to overcome, especially without their best player.
“It would have been a lot nicer to leave with a win,” Zibanejad said. “But I think these [10] days will do us good.”
More importantly, the Rangers hope it does good by Panarin’s health.
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