Artemi Panarin is an icon in more ways than one.
Ryan Reaves, a former Rangers teammate of Panarin, shared some hilarious stories about his time in New York with the high-scoring winger — including that the two did not hold back when they had days off after road trips.
“[Panarin] was a cool kid, he would come over after we landed after a road trip and we had the day off,” Reaves said in an episode of “The Cam & Strick Podcast” released Tuesday. “He’d come over at like 1 a.m., he’d race home, go grab a bottle of his Russian vodka and we’d sit downstairs and just take shots of vodka and play basketball at 4 a.m.”
But Reaves and Panarin didn’t only spend a lot of time together slamming back vodka shots.
“[Panarin] doesn’t carry around an iPhone, he carries a flip phone,” Reaves said. “We’d have an app that you get your schedule on and this guy doesn’t have this app. So, everyday I got to text him like, ‘Hey we got a meeting’ or ‘Hey I’m picking you up’ or whatever it was, it was just constant, like I was his secretary.”
And while Reaves only spent just over a season of his 15-year NHL career with the Rangers, Panarin certainly made a strong impression.
“He is one of the coolest guys, one of the coolest Russians I’ve met,” Reaves said. “Him and his wife [are] so humble.”
Panarin has spent the last six seasons of his 10-year NHL career with the Rangers and has been a consistent piece for New York year in and year out.
And those late nights with his enforcer-buddy Reaves didn’t seem to throw Panarin off one bit, as the lone full season they spent together as teammates yielded him his then-highest point total of his entire career at 96, which he later surpassed in 2023-24 with 120.
The 33-year-old Panarin is entering the final season of his seven-year contract with the Rangers, while the 38-year-old Reaves signed a three-year deal with the Maple Leafs in 2023.
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