Rangers and Artemi Panarin on different wavelengths in contract terms
Vince Mercogliano of The Athletic joined Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Scott Laughlin and Gord Stellick and was asked about Artemi Panarin’s contract situation with the New York Rangers.
NHLRumors.com Transcripts
Scott Laughlin: Vince Mercogliano talks to Rangers here on the NHL Morning Skate. So you mentioned Panarin and how much he still attacks up front. It seems like people are talking more about his haircut than a contract extension lately. What are you hearing about that, Vince, regarding Panarin? Now he’s 34. I guess because he’s 34, there may be a difference of opinion on what the term is going to look like in this contract. Do you ever see this happening?
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Vince Mercogliano: Yeah, I think term will definitely be an issue here, from what I’ve heard. And I asked Panarin himself, to be honest, we talked about it the day he shaved his head. I sat down with him for an interview after practice that day, and he was in that slump. And I kind of asked him what was going on. And without asking, he pointed out, all kinds of things happen.
The negativity starts to seep in when I don’t score. And he brought up, it’s a contract year, and it’s hard for me to get that out of my mind. So that led me to then respond by asking: where do things stand now with the contract negotiations?
What he told me is that it’s actually quite quiet. Could that have changed in recent weeks? That’s possible, but I certainly haven’t heard anything to the contrary. And as far as the Rangers are thinking about this, my understanding is that they’re really in no rush to make a new deal with Panarin at this point.
When you mentioned the age, I think they’re really eager to see how this season goes, how productive he is, but they’re also looking at a situation that’s pretty unique compared to where they’ve been out the past few seasons. Where in the past, in the recent past, they’ve usually gone into the summer pretty tight on salary caps.
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Where they’re looking at over $30 million in available cap space next summer. So I think they’re looking forward to that kind of flexibility, and they don’t want to just tie up a bunch of that money so early in the process. They want to wait and see how the market will develop.
The downside for them, or the negative for them right now, is that a lot of the big names, the star level players, (Connor) McDavid, (Kirill) Kaprizov, (Jack) Eichel, whoever you want to say they were hoping would hit free agency next summer, a lot of those guys are locked up now, so the free agent market is looking thinner and thinner, really, by the week, it feels like recently.
So that’s not a good thing for the Rangers because they’re going to have all this cap space. But what they’re going to spend it on is whether starting the feeling, to me more like (Chris) Drury, has to get creative somehow, that could mean a trade. Who knows what could be out there by the time we reach summer?
But again, I think they want to wait and let things materialize, figure out exactly what might be available to them, and that’s why they don’t want to start expansions with Panarin at this point, because they might want to spend that money elsewhere. I think at this point they really want to keep their options open.
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And while it sounds to me like Panarin would like to stay, I also don’t think he’s looking to make a big cut at this point, or certainly not take fewer years than he’d like. And so I also think there’s an impasse in that regard, because if the Rangers do anything with him at this early point, I think it’s going to have to be very much on their terms, which probably means not as many years and a lower AAV, especially than what he’s currently at, which is $11.6 million per season.
So I just feel like the two sides see things very differently now, and the Rangers are content to wait and see how things play out.
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