Artemi Panarin was in the middle of the two most critical plays in the Rangers’ 5-4 loss to the Avalanche on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
In addition to notching the game-tying score at the 15:02 mark of the third period, Panarin had a front-row seat to Cale Makar’s interception of the puck and generation of an odd-man rush that led to Artturi Lehkonen’s game-winning score with 14.7 seconds on the clock.
The star Russian wing, who extended his point streak to four games (two goals, three assists) with a goal and assist Sunday, was also on for the Rangers’ failed power play in the third period.
“I mean, we try to find the lanes,” he said of the missed opportunity with the man-advantage. “But they defended pretty well. I look to the net all the time and then, like, one guy in front of me every time. Mika [Zibanejad] has a couple shots. Their goalie played well.”
At the end of a 2-minute, 42-second shift for Panarin, Makar hopped out of the penalty box and seized Will Borgen’s intended pass for No. 10.
Makar then got on his horse and generated a three-on-one rushfor Colorado, which concluded with Lehkonen’s 20th goal of the season.
Asked if someone should be yelling that a player was coming out of the box, Panarin admitted he was tired during the sequence.
“I [didn’t] see him,” Panarin said. “So he was behind. And then, I think, I [didn’t] even touch the puck. He just jumped in front of me.”
The fourth line of Adam Edstrom, Sam Carrick and Matt Rempe has had a lot to do with the Rangers’ rediscovered resilience, and the unit jump-started the team’s response Sunday.
Trailing 2-0 early in the first period, Carrick buried his fifth of the season off a sweet backhanded feed from Rempe.
It took less than 90 seconds for the Rangers to score another, when Vincent Trocheck banged home a pass from Alexis Lafreniere on a two-on-one rush.
The Avs, however, capitalized on their first power play to take a 3-2 lead into the second period when Makar recorded his second goal of the period and his 18th of the season.
With his uncle, Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury, looking on, Jack Drury notched his first goal with the Avs since getting traded from Carolina as part of a three-team NHL blockbuster deal on Friday.
The NHL unveiled the Rangers’ quarter-century team on Sunday.
On the first team, Chris Kreider, Panarin and Zibanejad made up the forward group, while Adam Fox and Ryan McDonagh rounded out the back end. Face of the franchise for most of his 15-year NHL career, Henrik Lunqvist was naturally the first-team goalie.
Jaromir Jagr, Derek Stepan and Mats Zuccarello were named the second-team forwards and Dan Girardi and Marc Staal were the defensemen. Igor Shesterkin was named second-team netminder.