Is Artemi Panarin the Blue Jackets' missing link?

Adam Gretz

Is Artemi Panarin the Blue Jackets' missing link? image

The Blue Jackets pretty much came out of nowhere last season to be one of the best teams in the NHL.

They set a franchise mark with 50 wins, finished with the fourth-best record in the league, and played the eventual Stanley Cup champions much tighter than the final tally of the five-game series might have you believe. It was a legitimately good hockey team that has a solid foundation in place for sustained success, thanks to a two-time Vezina Trophy-winning goalie and two emerging All-Star level players on defense in Zach Werenski and Seth Jones. 

They also, very quietly, finished as one of the highest-scoring teams in the league.

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Some of that goal-scoring success was driven by a 9.7 team-wide shooting percentage that was near the top of the league and could regress a little this season. But a lot of it was also due to a deep, balanced lineup that had steady contributors throughout.

Eight different players topped the 40-point mark and 12 different players scored at least 10 goals. There really wasn't a glaring weakness anywhere on the roster. 

Just about the only thing they did lack, however, was a true difference-making forward. The kind of top-tier offensive force that most Stanley Cup caliber teams have. 

A “go-to-guy” so to speak. 

Cam Atkinson had an outstanding season — probably what could be described as a career season — with 35 goals, seven more than his previous career high. 

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Make no mistake, he is a fine player and was among the top-35 point producers in the league this past season. But is he the type of player who is going to be a No. 1 scoring option on a Stanley Cup-winning team? Or a player who opposing teams have to focus on and constantly worry about every time he is on the ice? 

He doesn't seem like it.

That is the one element the 2016-17 Blue Jackets seemed to be missing.

It may have arrived over the summer when they traded Brandon Saad back to the Blackhawks in exchange for Artemi Panarin.

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Giving up Saad was a pretty significant price to pay because he is an outstanding two-way player. He is a dominant possession player, plays a 200-foot game, has a ton of skill and produces like a top-line forward. There is a lot to like. But when you look at him in relation to the one-for-one swap for Panarin, the question that has to be asked is this: Is his all-around play so good that it makes up for the near 20-point gap in offense that exists between the two players?

I am not so sure that it does. 

First, the Blue Jackets already had a lot of players on their roster capable of playing a strong two-way game. Maybe not quite to Saad’s level, but most of the roster was made up of similar players. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. You can never have too many players that excel at both ends of the rinks. But they didn’t really have anyone who compares to Panarin or plays the type of game he does with the ability to take over a shift and be a dominant player offensively. 

That is an important element, too, and most Stanley Cup-winning teams have at least one top scorer on their roster. Just going back over every Stanley Cup winner in the salary cap era, the only two teams that did not have at least one top-20 scorer were the 2014-15 Chicago Blackhawks (Jonathan Toews was 23rd — they also had Patrick Kane at 28th) and the 2010-11 Boston Bruins (Milan Lucic, their leading scorer that year, was 40th).  

There is a lot to be said for having balance. But you also need a game-breaker. 

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Since entering the NHL two years ago, Panarin has been one of the top 10 scorers in the entire league. The only players with more points than his 151 the past two seasons are Kane, Sidney Crosby, Jamie Benn, Nicklas Backstrom, Erik Karlsson and Blake Wheeler. He is tied with Nikita Kucherov. 

Offensively, at least when it comes to point production, he has been one of the elites in the NHL the past two seasons. 

That’s the good news. 

The question mark, though, is going to be Panarin’s ability to repeat that production in Columbus. 

The one constant for Panarin during his two years in Chicago was playing alongside Kane. It was one of the most productive duos in the league and their individual success was largely connected. So much so that Kane had a hand in 70 percent of Panarin’s points in Chicago. 

On Wednesday, when he was introduced to the Columbus media, Panarin was asked about that connection and the idea that he only succeeds because of other players seems to be annoying him a little.

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"I want to keep progressing, in no way should I need to prove myself,” Panarin said, via 1st Ohio Battery. “I am not going to think about it. I am going to play the best game without thinking. The more I think about it, the more pressure. Throughout my career, including Russia in my very last season, people always say I am playing because of somebody else. Nobody remembers how I played prior to the last couple of years. I am used to it and I am not paying attention to it. I get a little bit angry at it."

It’s understandable, because even if playing alongside Kane has helped to boost his production somewhat, there is still something to be said for being a 75-point player in today’s NHL. 

There are a lot of players who play alongside superstars. Almost none of them produce the way Panarin has, because not everybody has Panarin’s skillset. Not everybody has his booming one-time slap shot that can be unstoppable when he puts it on target. Not everybody has his instincts in the offensive zone. 

He is a dynamic player and he is going to get an opportunity to prove what he can do when he is the one that gets tasked with being the top guy on his own line. 

If he excels, he gives an already deep team — one that, again, has two emerging superstars on defense and a two-time Vezina Trophy-winning goalie -— an element it badly needed. 

Playing in the Metropolitan Division with the back-to-back Stanley Cup Champions (Penguins), back-to-back Presidents’ Trophy winners (Capitals) and what should be an improved Rangers team, the Blue Jackets have a tall mountain standing in front of them. But two of those teams (Pittsburgh and Washington) took some steps backwards this offseason on paper while the Blue Jackets added the most significant player of any team in the division. 

That is a pretty great sign for a 50-win team.

Adam Gretz