It's the elephant in the room. Gallant acknowledged as much after the Bruins game, even though he couched his comments saying it was an issue with "the line" and not just Panarin, even though we all know Trocheck & Kravtsov have looked good away from Bread. The next 33 games + playoffs are going to fascinating. I think there's a chance we see some real organizational turmoil this summer.
Maybe we need some turmoil. Anything to change this in-group, out-group culture.
Way too much leash for certain forwards and not nearly enough for anybody else. Obviously this is with multiple coaches.
The biggest problem is that, unless you're an instant hit like McDavid, a young player is almost never going to walk right in and be in the in-group, and the leash disappears quickly.
And I'm not talking about ice time. They've had ice time. We just don't seem that interested in developing their skills because they're not the top guys, nor do we seem interested in getting the most out of the top guys because they do what they want.
What's the result? Everyone gets a bit worse at offense for different reasons.
I can't blame Panarin as an individual because this has been the Rangers my whole life, but he's a big enough star with enough on the line to set a good or a bad example of how we operate going forward.