Artemi Panarin Impresses Early-On

Artemi Panarin is quickly making a name for himself in Chicago. The KHL Transfer watched his point total double in three straight years in Russia. This led to Artemi Panarin being a sought after free-agent this past summer. The Blackhawks ultimately won the bid.

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With St.Petersburg in 2014-15, he played 52 games while putting 62 points and roughly 16 minutes of ice-time on average. To put that in perspective, in the same amount of games playing for the same team, Ilya Kovalchuk only had 55 points. The 5’9 winger is roughly 160lbs, which similarly matches the frame of Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau.

Artemi Panarin impressed Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville in training camp. After sustaining an upper-body injury late in training camp and only appearing in the last preseason game, the sample size was simply too small. Now, the Blackhawks have played a couple regular season games and we’ve gotten a much closer look at the highly coveted KHL transfer. One thing we can say with confidence, this 23-year-old kid is talented.

Like many skilled small-ish forwards, one of Artemi Panarin’s best traits surround what he can do with his skating. He has good speed, and excellent acceleration with quick feet. We knew Panarin would be a solid skater. We just didn’t realize how excellent.

In a quote from “The Hockey Writers” on Artemi Panarin:

“From a scouting report perspective, he possesses an above average one-timer. He has a sneaky quick release, and an innate ability to find the soft spots in defenses and gravitate toward the right goal scoring areas. The velocity and accuracy on his wrist shot isn’t going to set the world on fire. He’s no Alex Semin in that department, but his wrist shot is certainly more than adequate. Some of the stickhandling moves he can pull off on the rush may remind some Blackhawks fans of watching Patrick Kane.”

It looks like Artemi Panarin has fit in nicely playing a top-six role in Chicago early on. Quenneville mixed the lines up a bit in the first game versus the Islanders, but Kane and Panarin saw a significant amount more ice-time with one another in the second game of the season vs. the Isles. The Blackhawks took both games against the New York Islanders to open 2015-16. Saturday’s defeat was by a margin of 4-1, as Patrick Kane and Artemi Panarin were both involved in the first three Blackhawks goals.

For anyone that had their concerns about this Russian player making the jump from the KHL to North American style play. You can rest easy, because the transition so far has gone as smoothly as it possibly can. We had concerns about replacing the skill of Patrick Sharp and Brandon Saad, but it looks as though Artemi Panarin and Artem Anisimov have filled in admirably.

Now that we know the question mark players heading into the season for Chicago should be fine. It is safe to assume the Blackhawks should once again be Stanley Cup Contenders in 2015-16.

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