Another game day of the National Hockey League regular season turned out to be intense and eventful for the Russians. Artemiy Panarin and Pavel Buchnevich scored their 25th goals of the season, Andrei Vasilevsky scored his 31st shutout in his overseas career, Evgeni Malkin, Nikita Kucherov and Mikhail Sergachev continue to score points, while Andrei Kuzmenko and Kirill Marchenko are chasing records.
Panarin performs in beauty “New York Rangers” less than a month before the start of the Stanley Cup, gained a powerful move and began to destroy almost everyone in their path. After two days of rest, the Blueshirts met in their arena with one of the league's losers, Columbus, with whom New York star Artemy Panarin formed a special relationship. Khlebusek gave the Blue Jackets several years of his cool career, but did not renew this romance and changed into a Rangers jersey in the summer of 2019. Since then, Columbus fans have not been very happy to meet with Panarin, to which Artemy responds with performance.
Today, the Russian super forward scored two points and approached the mark of 100 points for the season. Artemy has 16 points left to reach the symbolic peak in eight matches. The task is difficult, but not impossible for a Russian. Once again, Panarin assisted Mika Zibanejad, and before that he distinguished himself. Khlebushushka's superb shot, much like his game-tying goal in last year's playoff series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, brought the Russian the 25th puck of the season.
In addition to Panarin, Vladimir Tarasenko also scored, it seems that he has fully adapted to the conditions in his new club. Vlady did a great job in the slot and sent the puck into the net after Braden Schneider's shot.
Before the Rangers' scoring extravaganza, Igor Shesterkin showed an amazing reaction. The Russian goalkeeper of the Blueshirts eventually saved 28 shots out of 30 and was recognized as the first star of the meeting. Panarina was named the second star.
Only Johnny Gaudreau and Kirill Marchenko managed to upset Shesterkin, who scored his 20th goal in the championship and repeated the club record for goals in his debut season in the NHL, catching up with Pierre-Luc Dubois in the ranking of the best snipers of Columbus rookies. But this did not save the Blue Jackets from defeat — 2:6.
Vasilevsky punished “Carolina” for trollingThe last visit to Raleigh ended for “Tampa” in a major defeat from the owners of the site: “Carolina” sent six unanswered washers to Andrei Vasilevsky. Before the start of a new head-to-head match, Hurricanes fans decided to play a prank on the Lightning's Russian goalkeeper: «Vasilevsky, I've seen more discount coupons than you've made saves.» In total, in his NHL career, the Russian has had 31 shutouts in the regular season.To Ilya Bryzgalov, who opens the top 5 among Russian goalkeepers in the history of the NHL in terms of the number of crackers, Vasilevsky is left play «to zero» three times.
Andrey and his partners «in the field» did not disappoint. If in the first period to hit the gate of Peter Kochetkov from the “Carolina” “lightning” failed, then in the second and third periods – no problem. The majority in the opening of the second 20-minute period became fatal, which was played perfectly by Nikita Kucherov, Mikhail Sergachev and Steven Stamkos. The captain of the Lightning, thanks to Sergachev's magnificent and cunning pass, has risen in the ranking of the best scorers in NHL history to 42nd place. After that, the «lightning» scored three more goals — not without the participation of Kucherov. Nikita scored an assistant double and took a clear 13th place among the best Russian assistants in league history, ahead of Alexei Yashin.
Kuzmenko's amazing debut in the NHL Andrey Kuzmenko is one of the main discoveries of the current NHL season. Yes, the Russian is not included in the list of regulated newcomers to the league because of his age, but these are conventions. Kuzya shows himself very clearly in his first season in the world's major hockey league and from match to match pleases Vancouver fans. In today's game against St. Louis, Andrey scored a double and approached the mark of 40 goals for the season. At the moment, the Russian has 37 goals in 73 games. Kuzmenko also scored his 67th and 68th points, respectively, and set a new record for Vancouver in points among NHL debutants, surpassing the achievement of Elias Pettersson (66 points in the 2018/19 season).
However, the efforts of the 96th issue of the “Canucks” was not enough to win the “killer whales” – “Blues” were stronger and won the victory in overtime. “St. Louis” was losing in the course of the meeting, but Alexey Toropchenko, after a perfect solo passage, restored equality, and then Pavel Buchnevich helped the “musicians” to take the lead with his transfer. Later, Butch distinguished himself. The Russian leader of «St. Louis» perfectly opened at the penny and closed the transfer of a partner.
Other achievements of the Russians Productive in every sense was the match between “Pittsburgh” and “Detroit”. For two teams scored 11 goals, but 7 of them — on account of the players, «Red Wings». Even in the first period, “Detroit” has achieved a comfortable advantage and brought the score to 3:0 in their favor. However, in the second period, the Penguins made a comeback. Not without the help of Evgeni Malkin, who scored 2 points. Initially, Gino had an assist and a goal on his account, but later his puck was transferred to Jake Gunzel, and Evgeny was left with two assists. At the beginning of the third period, the Penguins fought with the Red Wings, exchanging goals, but later the owners of the Little Caesars Arena took their toll. The main hero of the meeting was David Perron, who scored a hat-trick.
In another match of the day Evgeny Dadonov scored a decisive assist. The Russian opened up great in the “Dallas” after the exchange from “Montreal” and regularly scores points. His pass to Colin Miller gave the Stars the game-winning goal in a 4-1 loss to Chicago. Among the assistants, Ivan Barbashev also improved his statistics. Exchanged during the deadline in “Vegas”, the Russian striker scored an assist in the game with “Edmonton”, but the victory remained for the “Oilers” (7:4). Connor McDavid scored an assist hat-trick for the Oilers.