Artemi Panarin scored a goal on opening night in his first game as a Ranger, and that success carried all season long in 2019-20, leading Panarin to become a finalist for the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s MVP.
As he embarked on his second season as a Blueshirt, with the Rangers opening their 2020-21 season Thursday night at the Garden against the Islanders, the question for Panarin, a newly minted alternate captain for David Quinn’s club, is simply this:
Can he do it again?
"It will be difficult, but I want it as badly as you do,’’ Panarin said Thursday, after the Rangers’ first morning skate of the season, at their practice facility in Tarrytown.