Yesterday the most expected The trade of the 2025-2026 season finally happened. The New York Rangers traded Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings for Liam Greentree and a third-round pick in 2026. Shortly after the deal was announced, the Kings revealed that they had signed Panarin to a two-year contract worth $22 million. That brings an AAV of $11 million. As a result, he is the team’s highest-paid forward.
Today there were some rumors about teams being interested in Panarin before he was transferred to LA. But when Panarin made it clear he only wanted to go to the Kings, those teams were taken out of the running relatively early. Still, one report on the Seattle Kraken attracted a lot of attention. According to reports, the Kraken offered Panarin a four-year deal with an AAV of $14 million per season. That would have tied him with Edmonton Oilers star Leon Draisaitl as the second-highest paid player next season in the NHL. Some wonder if the offer was even higher.
So the obvious question becomes: did the Kraken really believe Panarin was worth the same or more than one of the best players in the world?
Kraken makes big offer to Panarin
When a player like Panarin makes it clear he wants to join only one team, the team that currently owns his rights will usually still do its due diligence. That means you have to look around the league to see if there is a better offer they can take back to the player. This appears to be what the Rangers did here. It was reported that the Kraken were willing to offer Panarin between $56 and $60 million over four years. Had Panarin agreed to that deal, it likely would have resulted in a trade between the Rangers and Kraken. That trade would probably have been inclusive Shane Wright on the way to New York.
Obviously that never came to fruition. Now fans are wondering why Seattle felt comfortable going that high in the first place. Panarin is not a better player than Draisaitl, and honestly (outside of Draisaitl’s rookie year) he hasn’t been at any point in his career. Draisaitl has firmly established himself as a top three player in the NHL. While $14 million a year is a huge amount, it makes sense in his case. He’s flirting with 50 goals, scoring over 100 points and consistently helping his team get into the playoffs.
Panarin doesn’t quite tick those same boxes. The most goals he has ever scored in a season is 49, which came in 2022-2023. He has only reached 100 points once in his career. And when the Rangers started falling in the standings, he couldn’t get them back on track. He’s not a true game driver and doesn’t control games the way elite franchise players do, especially at this stage of his career. At $14 million per season, Seattle would have paid that contract until Panarin was 38, and continued until 39. Looking at it through that lens, it might actually be a blessing in disguise for the Kraken that he didn’t take the offer.
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