Rangers and Artemi Panarin on Different Wave Lengths in Terms of Contract
Vince Mercogliano of The Athletic joined Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Scott Laughlin and Gord Stellick and was asked concerning the contract situation involving Artemi Panarin with the Recent York Rangers.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Scott Laughlin: Vince Mercogliano talking Rangers with us here on the NHL Morning Skate. So that you mentioned Panarin and the way much he still drives offense up front. It looks as if recently individuals are talking more about his haircut than they’re a few contract extension. What are you hearing on that, Vince, as regards to Panarin? Now, he’s 34. My guess could be that because he’s 34, there could also be a difference of opinion when it comes to what the term goes to appear like on this contract. Do you see this getting done in some unspecified time in the future?
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Vince Mercogliano: Yeah, definitely term, I believe, goes to be a problem here, from what I’ve heard. And I actually asked Panarin, myself, actually, to be frank with you, we were talking the day that he shaved his head. I sat down with him for a little bit of an interview after practice that day, and that’s when he was in that slump. And I used to be sort of asking him what was happening. And unprompted, he brought up, there’s a variety of stuff happening.
The negativity starts to seep in after I’m not scoring. And he brought up, it’s a contract 12 months, and it’s hard for me to sort of block that out of my mind. In order that prompted me to then respond by asking, Well, where do things stand with the contract negotiations without delay?
What he told me is that it’s mainly pretty quiet. Now, could which have modified within the last couple weeks? It’s possible, but I actually haven’t heard anything on the contrary. And my understanding, so far as the Rangers pondering on this, is that they really aren’t in any rush to leap into any latest cope with Panarin at this point.
While you mentioned the age, I believe they very much wish to see how this season plays out, how productive he’s, but in addition they are taking a look at a situation that’s pretty unique in comparison with where they’ve been in recent off seasons. Where previously, within the recent past, they’ve often gone into the summer pretty tight on salary cap space.
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Where this coming summer, they’re taking a look at over $30 million in available cap space. So I believe that they’re looking forward to having that sort of flexibility, and so they don’t want to only tie up a bunch of that cash this early in the method. They wish to wait to see how the market materializes.
Now, the downside for them, or the negative thing for them without delay, is that a variety of the massive names, the star-level players, (Connor) McDavid, (Kirill) Kaprizov, (Jack) Eichel, whoever you desire to say that they were hoping might make it to free agency next summer, a variety of those guys are getting locked up without delay, so the free agent market is looking thinner and thinner, really, by the week, it appears like recently.
In order that’s not a very good thing for the Rangers, because they’re going to have all this cover space. But what are they going to spend it on is the query if starting the texture, to me more like (Chris) Drury, goes to need to get creative in some way, which may mean a trade. Who knows what might be on the market by the point we get to the summer?
But again, I believe they wish to wait and let things materialize, work out exactly what is perhaps available to them, and that’s why they don’t wish to jump into any extensions with Panarin without delay because they could wish to allocate that cash elsewhere. I believe very much without delay they wish to keep their options open.
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And while it sounds to me like Panarin would really like to remain, I also think that he’s not of the mind without delay to be giving a giant discount, or actually not taking fewer years than he would really like to take. And so I also think that there’s an impasse so far as that, because if the Rangers do anything with him at this early juncture, I believe it’s very much going to need to be on their terms, which implies probably not so a few years and a lower AAV, actually than what he’s at without delay, at $11.6 million per season.
So I just feel like without delay the 2 sides are seeing things very otherwise, and the Rangers are content to sort of wait and see how things play out.
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