Artemi Panarin was just having a quiet little break in March so he could come out and demolish everyone in April, it seems. The Hawks played just three games over the past week, and two of them were in April: enough for Panarin to get first star of the week honors.
It gets even more awesome than that, though. While Panarin was held pointless in the first game of the week, in games two and three, he put up back-to-back four-point performances.
This is not common. In fact, via the Elias Sports Bureau, Inc., it almost never happens for the Blackhawks:
Panarin is the fifth player in team history to score at least four points in each two consecutive team games in one season. The others each scored over 1100 points in their NHL careers: Bobby Hull (December 1964), Stan Mikita (February 1970), Denis Savard (December 1986), and Jeremy Roenick (December 1991).
Okay, so Panarin might not hit 1100 career points – he got a late start and, well, it’s a different era – but the fact that it’s a different era just makes it even more impressive. The last time a Hawk had back-to-back four-point games, Panarin was just a couple of months old. That’s staggering to think about.
It’s not a common feat outside of the Hawks, either. Further via Elias:
Panarin is the first player on any NHL team to record consecutive four-point games since James Neal did so for Pittsburgh in March 2012, and he is only the third rookie in the last 30 years to pull off that feat. The others were Alexei Yashin of Ottawa in November 1993 and Nicklas Backstrom of Washington in January 2008.
And to go further down the rookie and Blackhawks train:
Per Elias, Artemi Panarin is the first rookie in #Blackhawks history to record consecutive four-point performances.
— Tracey Myers (@TramyersCSN) April 4, 2016
Artemi Panarin is the only @NHLBlackhawks rookie since 1987 to have multiple 3-assist games https://t.co/AQSZG5pbcP pic.twitter.com/SbaIDtgp6G
— Hockey Reference (@hockey_ref) April 4, 2016
There’s something really special in Chicago, here.