The art of Artemi Panarin's one-timer (2024)

Everyone knows it’s coming.

The fans know. The goalie knows. The passer knows. Artemi Panarin certainly knows.

But even as Panarin sets himself up in the left circle, pulls his right-handed stick back and waits to strike the puck immediately once it arrives, everyone knows there’s a significant likelihood Panarin’s one-timer will result in a goal.

Of course, it isn’t that simple. There are many moving parts to such a play. The passer is creating a diversion. The goalie is reacting quickly and often blindly attempting to seal openings. Panarin is adjusting his body to connect his stick just perfectly with a moving object.

It’s undoubtedly a difficult skill, but Panarin has become one of the best in the NHL. Of his 17 goals this season, he has scored 10 of them on one-timers. Panarin, his teammates, scouts and a physics professor were all asked to weigh in on his unique ability.

Goalie’s view

Blackhawks goalie Scott Darling studies goaltending so diligently that Blackhawks goalie coach Jimmy Waite recently described Darling as a hockey nerd.

Darling not only breaks down goalie mechanics, but he also works to understand how to prepare for specific situations. As Darling explained, stopping a one-timer is one of the more difficult tasks.

The first aspect of it is the pass.

“It just gets goalies moving,” Darling said. “If we could be there ready on our feet, ready for the shot, I think he’d score sometimes, but not nearly as much as he does. That pass makes us move into it. By the time we get to him, the puck’s already on its way.

“You’re trying to get a read off him whether [the shot’s] going low or high and kind of go from there. But it depends where the pass comes from. It’s a little easier if the pass comes from the middle. But if it comes all the way across the ice, it’s pretty far away to go.”

If the pass is across the ice, which in Panarin’s case often starts in the right circle, the goalie has to move from left to right and then quickly determine which potential gaps in his body he wants to cover.

“And it’s not a comfortable movement for a goalie to close off that area of the net when he’s going across the ice, so there’s kind of some holes,” Darling said. “When you’re shooting from the side, there’s usually holes around your right leg or up over your shoulder. But he gets it off quick and it’s a great shot.”

And that’s what separates Panarin from nearly everyone.

“Not to mention, he has one of the best one-timers,” Darling said. “It reminds me a lot of [Alex] Ovechkin’s, so I’d say it’s a good company. … It’s hard and it’s accurate. Plus, he gets down sometimes in a weird angle that not a lot of guys shoot from.”

Scouts’ take

Blackhawks radio color analyst and former NHL player Troy Murray marvels at Panarin’s one-timer.

Murray could never shoot the puck like that. He scored 230 goals in his NHL career, but not how Panarin scores them. Murray admires the complexity of what Panarin is able to do. He’s consistently good at something that is comprised of inconsistent elements.

“These new sticks have a sweet spot, and it always seems every time he shoots it it’s in that sweet spot,” Murray said. “You can use the flex of the stick, which he does, but his ability to get the shot away from all angles and where pucks are being passed to him — on the front foot, on the back foot, in the middle — a lot of times it’s not in his wheelhouse, and he’s had to make adjustments whether he’s down on his left knee. You saw the other day where he fell forward because he had to make that adjustment, so he had to get into the shot moving forward from where his body positioning was. It’s just one of those unique shots.

“You can’t explain how he’s shoots it so accurate and so hard from the one-timer when there’s so many good guys in the NHL that have ability. He finds that open ice, gets into that spot. To me, it’s just in the sweet spot. His timing is perfect and it’s right into the sweet spot every time. It’s not off the heel. It’s not off the toe. The heel, it’s going to come short side. It’s just going to hit the heel and come this way. If it hits the toe, it’s going to flutter and go wide. You don’t see that. It’s in the sweet spot every time. That’s just a skill, I don’t even know how you explain it.”

Murray also placed Panarin in elite company.

“These guys are all great players, but that’s an art,” Murray said. “For me, Steve Larmer was a guy back in my day with the old wood sticks had an unreal one-timer. Brett Hull was one of those guys where it seemed like every time he had an opportunity to shoot, it was in the sweet spot. Panarin’s just one of those guys.

“But if you look at Ovechkin, [Steven] Stamkos, the two guys. Stamkos is a little bit different. Ovechkin comes off so hard and heavy, and Stamkos comes off real quick with a lot of speed. To me, Panarin’s kind of in between those.”

Hockey scouts also broke down what it is about Panarin’s one-timer that is different than most.

“Accuracy to the short side,” one NHL scout said. “He has great front-foot discipline and can hold his technique on passes outside his skate base.”

Another scout said, “He’s one of the best at it I’ve seen. Just has perfect timing, perfect torque, gets everything on it and puts it exactly where he wants it.”

The physics

University of Moncton physical professor Alain Hache was familiar with Panarin by just name and fantasy statistics until recently.

“I certainly know the player,” Hache said. “He’s in my hockey pool. He’s giving me a lot of points.”

Hache was recently sent clips of Panarin scoring goals from his one-timer, and Hache developed a different sort of respect for Panarin.

Hache has his own perspective on hockey. He looks at it from his physics background. He’s written two books about the sport – The Physics of Hockey and Slap Shot Science. When Hache viewed Panarin’s one-timer, he came away impressed.

“I found it very interesting actually because it’s something that is quite difficult to do,” Hache said. “Sometimes you’ll see players do one-timers, say, from the blue line, and the puck sometimes will be sent from beside the net, say, so when the puck comes back it’s almost the same way. A bit like hitting a baseball, right? A baseball’s coming towards you and then you’re hitting it backward. I did discuss it in my first book, The Physics of Hockey, and I call it the Bounce Effect.

“In baseball if you look at the bouncing velocity of the ball, it actually goes faster if you were just to hit the ball stationary. It’s kind of a bouncing effect. If your bat would be fixed, wouldn’t be moving, the ball would just be bounce and acquire the same speed that it had. The fact the bat is coming adds to that speed. You found that the speed limit is twice the velocity of the stick, the bat or the racquet plus the initial velocity it had. That’s the main difference between, say, golf where you’re hitting a stationary ball. In golf, the ball will leave at about twice the velocity of the club. If you were to do the same thing in baseball with a stationary ball, the ball would go twice the speed of the bat, etc. But because it’s coming with the speed the pitcher gave it, it’s bouncing with that additional speed. Same thing in hockey. You’ll get a little more speed on that.”

Panarin’s shot generates some of that speed, but not all of it. His shot is special in a physics’ sense for another reason.

“If you look at Panarin, his particular one-timers may not produce the same bounce effect because you’re looking at it’s almost a 90 degree of change of direction,” Hache said. “The puck is coming sideways and he hits it in a completely other direction. But that’s what I find interesting about his particular shot is that it’s even more difficult because the timing has to be perfect. Because the puck coming sideways means if you’re just a little too ahead or too behind, then you won’t hit the puck right in the middle of the stick. That would not be a good shot. To have a puck coming at some speed and perfectly time his shot, so it will hit the center of the stick blade and go in the right direction.

“On top of that, if you look at the slow motion replay, you’ll notice he actually hits the ice before the puck. So that’s an additional degree of difficulty because you have to get maximum, you have to load the stick, meaning you have to hit the ice one foot before the puck that will slow the stick and bend it and the whipping effect will give it the most speed. So that’s an additional degree of difficultly.”

The Blackhawks

Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville: “I think a lot of times the guy that’s passing it is so respected that he’s a threat to shoot and he draws attention. All of a sudden you have to be aware of that pass, aware of him shooting it and not just the one option with Panarin getting that one-timer. Kaner draws a lot of attention and different looks. When it does get through, a lot of times there’s a clear shot or an empty net for a short amount of time. He practices it, but the threat of those two guys anticipating and knowing where each other is the best part of the one-timer.”

Patrick Kane: “It’s getting to the point where it’s a huge play for us. He gets it off. His timing is perfect on his shot, so he gets it off very quick and hard, and he’s ready for it all the time.”

Blackhawks forward Artem Anisimov: “I don’t know [why his one-timer is so effective.] He practices every day these one-timers. All day long, he shoots the puck from that position.”

Blackhawks forward Richard Panik: “He puts it in all the time, so I think it’s dangerous. It seems to me you can pass him anywhere on the ice, and he’ll find a way to shoot it one-timers. I think that’s pretty dangerous. He can shoot from any pass.”

The man behind the shot

“Does he know where his one-timer is going?”

Panarin laughed right away when the question was translated for him.

“Approximately,” Panarin said through an interpreter. “It depends on how the pass is given. If the puck is faster or wobbly, I don’t really have time to aim, so I just shoot. If it’s more straight and slower, I aim.”

Panarin spends time after nearly every Blackhawks’ practice working on his technique. Often, he’ll set up in the left circle, and Patrick Kane will do so in the right one, and they’ll go back and forth exchanging one-timers.

When speaking to the media on another occasion, Panarin credited practice for his success, but he also mentioned that aim again.

“He practiced it like he did now at the morning practice,” an interpreter said when Panarin was asked about the origin of his one-timer. “But just like always, he doesn’t know where the puck is going to go, so he can’t give a heads up to the goalies.”

Panarin uses a 90-flex stick, which is about the average. It’s neither extremely flexible or stiff. Panarin also doesn’t create a curve on his stick with the one-timer in mind.

“No, his stick is the opposite of that,” the interpreter said. “It’s not as a big of a curve. If you compare it to Sasha Ovechkin’s stick, he has a much more pronounced curve on his stick. But that’s the way he likes it. It seems to be working.”

As for drawing comparisons to Ovechkin’s one-timers, Panarin doesn’t take them seriously.

“He just laughs it off and has a good sense of humor about it because he knows how much more robust Ovechkin’s shot is,” the interpreter said. “He just laughs it off.”