The offseason in the National Hockey League brought a number of serious changes. One of the headliners of this festival was the New York Rangers, for whom global reforms were inevitable after the failure of last season. Then, let us remind you, the Blueshirts were eliminated at the stage of the first round of the playoffs, managing to lose to the New Jersey Devils, leading the series with a score of 2-0. As a result, the Rangers said goodbye to Gerard Gallant and appointed Peter Laviolette as head coach, who had previously been fired from a similar post with the Washington Capitals for much more unsuccessful results.
The changes also affected the main star of the club from New York, Artemy Panarin. Khlebushek traditionally had a strong performance in the last regular season and became the team's top scorer. However, in the playoffs he recorded only two assists in seven matches, which was followed by serious criticism against him. Rangers fans and American journalists did not hesitate to comment on the Russian super-forward’s play and argued that a hockey player with such a high salary does not bring relevant benefits to the team. With age, Panarin began to take this reaction much closer to his heart. Artemy is no longer the open, cheerful fellow that many are accustomed to. The forward, according to the stories of his friends, became somewhat withdrawn into himself and began to take what was happening around him many times more seriously.
Perhaps this also influenced the hockey player’s appearance. In the summer, Khlebushek not only cut off his famous curls, but shaved his head, which surprised the public. American fans and journalists still can’t get used to Artemy’s new look and regularly make jokes on this topic. They even say that in this way Panarin allegedly wanted to drive away evil spirits from himself. «Bald Panarin looks scary!» — there are a lot of such comments in the North American segment of the Internet, and there are more and more of them every time.
But we don’t care about the athlete’s appearance. We are only interested in hockey and the performances of Russian players in the best league in the world. And Panarin found arguments for this.
Artemy started the new season with the Rangers in a city that is of great importance for all of Russian hockey. In January 2011, the Russian youth team beat the Canadian team in the final match of the World Cup, which was crazy in intensity and intensity, and won gold medals, which are still the last success of our youth team. It happened in Buffalo at the Keybank Center arena, where the local Sabers play home games. Then Panarin scored two effective actions, scoring two historic goals. Today Artemy repeated his success in the same arena.
Already in the debut of the match with Buffalo, the Russian forward answered the skeptics who criticized the Russian for his alleged passivity. Upon entering the zone, Khlebushek fired powerfully at the goal and quickly played the finishing touch, rolling the puck to Alexis Lafreniere into an empty corner.
And in the middle of the third period, the Russian striker scored a goal. And again after a great throw. There was so much free space and time for making a decision in front of Artemy that the Sabers goalkeeper did not have the slightest chance of salvation. For the Russian, this match was already the hundredth since the 2019/20 season, when he began playing for the Rangers, in which Khlebushek scored at least two points. In the entire league, Artemy holds the sixth result in this indicator.
After Panarin's goal, the score on the scoreboard was already 3:0 in favor of the Rangers. “Buffalo” could not respond with anything, except for a spectacular hit by Rasmus Dahlin, who had signed a large and rich contract with the Blades the day before, and also a goal by John-Jason Peterka. The Blueshirts scored twice more at the end of the meeting and won a convincing victory at the start of the season.
By the way, it was already the hundredth in Igor Shesterkin’s career in the NHL championships. The Russian Rangers goalkeeper became the first goalkeeper in the club's history to achieve a hundred wins in less than 187 games. It took Igor only 159 matches to achieve this achievement. Thus, he became only the seventh goalkeeper in the entire NHL to record a glorious anniversary in less than 160 games.