In
his second season in the NHL, Artem Anisimov showed both the flashes of
brilliance that give so much hope for his future and things that frustrate many
fans during his present. Offensively Anisimov
registered six more goals and 10 more assists to take a 28 point rookie season
and turn it into a solid 44 point second year for the 22-year-old. The 16 point improvement between the seasons,
along with the increased roles he took on the team during the season, shows the
potential is certainly there for more.
His chemistry with Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan gave the Rangers a
line which, at times, could carry the offense for the team.
Anisimov
came out of the gates flying to start the 2010-11 season with six goals and
eight assists in the first 17 games of the season. The level was likely unsustainable
regardless, but the decline for vast sections of the season is something that
Anisimov will need to improve if he is to reach that high ceiling he has. It was the fact that he could go 10 games
without a point or have five different streaks of at least eight-games without
a goal that frustrated many fans and had many ready to give up on the young
Russian. I am not ready to do that.
Anisimov
clearly needs to work on his strength and his finishing around the net along
with his overall aggressiveness. The
first two are things that need no further explanation, but the third is caused
in part by how defensively responsible Anisimov is and there are stretches
where he becomes extremely passive in the offensive zone. The fact that he is so defensively responsible
is a good thing, but he cannot do one at the expense of the other.
In
terms of aggressiveness looking for his offense, he has a beautiful wrist shot
that has shown deadly precision at times, but he predominantly uses it off the
rush and not in the zone during a regular shift. When he gains confidence in his shot within
the flow of the game he will easily increase his goal scoring and with more
strength he will be able to potentially become a 25-30 goal scorer in the
league.
Let us take a look at the breakdown
of Anisimov’s numbers by month.
|
Month
|
Games Played
|
G
|
A
|
Shots
|
|
October
|
10
|
3
|
4
|
29
|
|
November
|
16
|
4
|
4
|
30
|
|
December
|
12
|
2
|
4
|
21
|
|
January
|
14
|
1
|
4
|
35
|
|
February
|
12
|
3
|
2
|
34
|
|
March
|
14
|
5
|
6
|
33
|
|
April
|
4
|
0
|
2
|
8
|
The
numbers by month actually look relatively consistent, but as I said there were
dips in production that are somewhat masked in splits because he had 10
multi-point games over the course of season, including a four point effort
against Toronto on January 19. Using
that a single example of one month that is skewed, you can see that in the
other 13 games he only had one goal for the month.
The
potential is there for Anisimov to be a 60+ point player in the NHL with added
strength, confidence and aggressiveness.
A summer working with Barbara Underhill on his power skating could
certainly benefit Anisimov on both of the ice as it did Brian Boyle this past
season.
Clearly
the Rangers think highly of him given their refusals to deal him at the trade
deadline, but one has to wonder how long the Rangers will give Anisimov to
develop fully before looking to move on from him. As a restricted free agent the way the
Rangers handle his negotiations, both in dollars and length of his next
contract, will say a lot about how long they envision Anisimov being a member
of the Rangers organization.
