This isn’t the way anyone expects to see Artemi Panarin on the nightly highlight clips, but these are the playoffs and these are the 2024 Rangers.
So when the referees either didn’t see or didn’t want to call T.J. Oshie’s blatant high stick that caught Panarin across the face with 6:44 remaining in the second period, No. 10 did not cry. No. 10 did not whine. No. 10 did not look for someone else to come to the rescue.
Panarin took care of the matter, himself, he sure did, not by dangling, not by putting the puck through a defenseman’s legs on a toe-drag, but by swooping in and leveling Oshie up high in open ice 6:47 into the third period, possibly catching the winger in the head with an elbow
Oshie was sent to the room to be checked by the league’s concussion spotter. After a review of the play, Panarin was not penalized at all. It was as if he suddenly became Tom Wilson with a Get Out of Jail Free card except he was the 2024 playoffs Panarin.
