Nothing has been louder than the noise behind superstar winger Artemi Panarin since it was announced that the New York Rangers were moving on. It’s been rumor after rumor, in many cases involving the Los Angeles Kings.
Knowing the Kings’ offensive struggles and lack of a true superstar, it was no surprise that the Kings sniffed around the situation to see if Panarin was someone they could land.
The domino finally fell on Wednesday afternoon. The Kings acquired Panarin from the Rangers in exchange for forward Liam Greentree and a conditional third-round pick (if the Kings win one playoff round, the pick becomes a second-round pick, and if they win two rounds, the Rangers get an additional 2028 4th-round pick). The Rangers also retained 50% of Panarin’s salary.
“I didn’t want to give Greentree away, but if you want to do anything, you’re going to have to move someone,” Kings general manager Ken Holland said. “As we sat in the room today … we felt like this wasn’t something we wanted to pass up.”
The Kings later announced that they had signed Panarin to a two-year extension worth $22 million.
Kings get their superstar
There are a lot of question marks when you look at this through a Rangers lens, from the value they got in return for the player who led them in the points for seven consecutive seasons to why they rushed to make this deal a month after the trade deadline, but for the Kings, this was an opportunity they simply couldn’t pass up.
“These types of players, with this resume, are very, very hard to find,” Holland said.
Not only are these types of players rarely available, but think of all the times the Kings have had their eyes on influential players who either chose another spot or didn’t want to come to Los Angeles at all. For the first time in what seems like forever, a superstar favored LA as their next destination, and the Kings made sure that happened.
Offering the extension played the biggest role in the Kings’ ability to land the Russian winger, and the fact that they only had to give Panarin two years makes the totality of this transaction a slam dunk.
According to Sportsnet NHL insider Elliotte FriedmanPanarin was offered a four-year deal worth over $14 million in average annual value (AAV) by the Seattle Kraken. Panarin still wanted to come to LA.
“I never wanted to go anywhere else,” Panarin said during a Zoom availability Thursday afternoon.
There was also talk of the Kings going back and forth between deciding to jump Panarin or going in the opposite direction and getting ready for a rebuild. Was there really a chance that they would choose to go the other way and blow it up, knowing that Anze Kopitar is done at the end of the season? The Kings have been determined to “win now” for a while now, and while they weren’t Panarin a non-contender, they were fully committed to it.
“You either compete or you get to work on a long-term rebuild. We’re not interested in a long-term rebuild…I think some of the people we signed are not interested in that, so we’re trying to compete,” Holland said. “Today we took the step to make our team better.”
There was skepticism about the Kings going after Panarin and whether or not it was the right move for a franchise stuck in that mushy middle. Thinking about what the costs would be to get him on land encouraged that skepticism. Not to mention the biggest hole in the Kings’ lineup (at center) remains to be closed.
Is signing a 34-year-old winger really the move the Kings should make when they’re down in the middle and don’t have a center that provides a lot of confidence to be enough for a playoff run?
The answer is yes, and it’s a yes because of the way it happened.
Acquiring a talent like Panarin, who immediately becomes the best player on the roster while only giving up Greentree and a conditional third-round pick, is a no-brainer. You make that move 10/10 times because the opportunity to do so does not occur often. There’s no doubt that Panarin immediately makes the Kings a better team, especially a team desperate to do what Panarin does best: create offense.
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Holland pulled off one of the biggest trades in Kings history, and it’s a no-risk, potentially high-reward move that automatically makes them better. Does the addition of Panarin put this group in the contenders conversation? No, that’s not the case, but the Kings still have their first-round pick in this year’s draft, they haven’t given up any marquee players, they still have the max cap space/draft capital to land a center, and if Panarin somehow doesn’t work out, they’re not stuck with him long-term, and there’s no reason why they couldn’t get the same value they gave up, if not more in a trade. There’s no gamble, there’s no risk, this is simply a trade that gives them a better chance to stay the course and compete.
“We believe Panarin will come in and give us some spice,” Holland said. “Help the PP, if we go into extra time, he can certainly play in extra time; those points are crucial.”
The story of the Kings season was competitive enough to be in every game, but not enough to get that extra point on most nights. The Kings are tied with fourteen as many overtime losses in the league and are nearly one goal away from an entirely different record. The addition of Panarin should add to their ability to score that one extra goal.
The kings sit on the outside looking in three points away from a play-off spot. Dropping two games in a row to teams they’re competing against wasn’t ideal heading into the Olympic break, but when the team returns on February 26, they’ll have their superstar winger ready to help drive this bus to the rankings and the playoffs.
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