Rangers hope Artemi Panarin finds a home on Mika Zibanejad's line

Rangers coach Gerard Gallant keeps searching for the perfect line combinations, but it’s possible he won’t really be able to find lines that he truly likes until after the March 3 trade deadline, when GM Chris Drury makes a move to beef up the Blueshirts’ top-six forward group.

So, judging by Tuesday’s practice, Gallant was sticking with the same lines he used Monday for Wednesday's game at the Garden against the Vancouver Canucks. That meant keeping the red-hot Kid Line of Alexis Lafrenière, Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko together, and it meant keeping his top two forwards, Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin, together as well.

Zibanejad and Panarin are a work in progress. The two haven’t really played much together at even strength since Panarin arrived as a free agent before the 2019-20 season. They started that season together, but then-coach David Quinn split them up, and both players thrived playing on separate lines. Zibanejad scored 41 goals and might have gotten 50 had the campaign not been cut short because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Panarin had a then-career-high 95 points (in 69 games) and was one of three finalists for the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s Most Valuable Player.

But with the departure of his center, Ryan Strome, last summer, the 2022-23 season has been a bit of a chore for Panarin. He did play in his first All-Star Game last weekend (It was the second time he made the All-Star team. He earned his first honor in 2019-20 but missed the event due to injury) and he did enter Wednesday tied with Zibanejad for the team lead in points (52, in 50 games).

But he hasn’t seemed to click as naturally with Strome’s replacement, Vincent Trocheck, as he did with Strome. So Gallant has separated those two for the time being. He tried Panarin, Zibanejad and Chris Kreider together, with Kreider shifting to right wing, but that experiment lasted four periods before Gallant moved Kreider to left wing on a line with Trocheck.

In the long term, Gallant would probably want to put longtime linemates Zibanejad and Kreider back together, but Panarin has to play with someone. The coach could try him with Chytil, the team’s hottest player (six goals in the last four games entering Wednesday), but that would mean breaking up the Kid Line, which has been the Rangers’ best line of late.

Could he really risk doing that?

“It's all about the team, really,’’ Gallant said after Tuesday’s practice. “I mean, we're winning hockey games . . . So you don't want to tinker with it. But it doesn't hurt. I mean, if Kaapo goes up and happens to play the right wing with somebody else, I don't think it's going to hurt anything.’’

Still, the three Kids have looked exceptional in the last four games, and Lafrenière, who was a healthy scratch for one game in late December, seems to be playing with more jump now than he has all season. He scored the winning goal in Monday’s overtime victory over Calgary and is brimming with confidence.

 The safest play for Gallant was to stay with Monday’s lines, which means keeping Panarin and Zibanejad together, along with Jimmy Vesey. Those three seemed to find something in the third period of Monday’s game, as the Rangers fought back from a 4-3 deficit. Panarin set up Zibanejad’s second goal, which tied the score and forced overtime. Vesey got an assist on that goal as well, and maybe that will be the start of something good for that trio.

“Obviously with ‘Artie,’ he’s such a good player and we’re trying to figure each other out,’’ Zibanejad said after Monday’s game. “I thought we had some good shifts. ‘Vese’ as well, is a big key on our line. I think it’s going to come more and more, hopefully. And I thought the third [Monday] was our best period together.’’

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.