New York Rangers & Artemi Panarin: A once in a lifetime opportunity
The New York Rangers will have the cap space and ability to pursue a marquee unrestricted free agent this summer. This may be best opportunity in years for the Rangers to acquire an impact player to help accelerate the rebuild.
As the New York Rangers continue on their rebuilding process, the one easy way to speed it up would be to sign a top free agent. There will be an opportunity this summer that they should not pass up, no matter the cost. That would be to sign Artemi Panarin.
Artemi Panarin is one of the best offensive players in the NHL. He is the equivalent of a top three entry draft pick and the only thing he will cost is money. How good is he?
I looked at the individual statistics from the last six seasons in the NHL (2013-18) and came up with a list of the top 48 forwards in the league. The criteria for inclusion was finishing in the top twenty in scoring and the top five in Selke voting as a defensive forward. There were only five players who finished in those categories six times or more: Sydney Crosby, Tyler Seguin, Anze Kopitar, Claude Giroux and Patrice Bergeron. I don’t think anyone will dispute that these are elite players and qualify as NHL superstars.
12 forwards made the list four or five times. That list includes names like Ovechkin, Tavares, Malkin, Backstrom, Wheeler and Tarasenko. It also includes Artemi Panarin.
Of the 48 players who made this elite list, not a single New York Ranger qualified.
Here’s why this summer is important. Of the top 48 offensive players in the league, only two are unrestricted free agents. Panarin is the best, with four seasons qualifying (and headed for a fifth). The other UFA on the list is Matt Duchene. Duchene has only finished among the top 20 in scoring once in his career.
Panarin has declared his intent to pursue free agency. He is the only player of that quality that we know will be available on July 1.
The cap situation
The cap situation isn’t great for the Rangers, but they can afford to sign one big free agent. According to cap.friendly.com the Rangers will have $17.5 million in cap space next season. That’s if the cap remains the same. Gary Bettman estimated that the cap will rise to $83 million giving the team $21 million in cap space.
That’s how much they have to sign their Restricted Free Agents and any UFA’s. Their RFA list includes Pavel Buchnevich, Brendan Lemieux, Neal Pionk, Fredrik Claesson and Tony DeAngelo. They also have to consider extending Chris Kreider or Jesper Fast, but those deals wouldn’t have an impact on the cap until 2020.
No matter what, the Rangers are still hampered by the long term deals that they gave to Marc Staal, Kevin Shattenkirk and Brendan Smith. Jeff Gorton will be sure to be ready to deal some of these players if he can find takers and willingness to forego no trade and no movement clauses.
The bottom line is the Rangers have the money to make the move.
What if they wait until 2020?
Could the Rangers wait and see who is available in 2020-21? They could, but looking at the list of potential free agents, there is no sure thing. With teams locking up their elite players on longterm contracts, the odds of a player like Panarin or a John Tavares being available becomes slimmer every year.
There is only one player from the list of 48 elite who could be an unrestricted free agent in two summers and that is Taylor Hall of the New Jersey Devils. You can be sure that the Devils will do everything they can to lock him up long before he even can sniff free agency.
If the Rangers let Panarin get away, here are the top 11 forwards entering Unrestricted Free Agency in 2020-21. They have to be 31 years old or younger and have scored a minimum of 20 goals or 55 points in the NHL in at least one season. The age shown is as of July 1, 2020.
- Taylor Hall, 28 -New Jersey
- Mike Hoffman, 30 – Florida
- Alex Galchenyuk, 26 – Arizona
- Tyler Toffoli, 28 – Los Angeles
- Evgeny Dadenov, 31, Florida
- Brayden Schenn, 28 – St. Louis
- Erik Haula, 29 – Vegas
- Charlie Coyle, 28 – Boston
- Conor Sheary, 28 – Buffalo
- Mikael Granlund, 28 – Nashville
- Craig Smith, 30, Nashville
You may have noticed that some names are missing from the list. Here are the Rangers who fit the criteria and will be UFA at the same time: Chris Kreider, Vlad Namestnikov and Jimmy Vesey (assuming he hits the 20 goal mark this season). If he gets that far, Kreider could easily be one of the top three UFA’s in 2020.
While there are some fine hockey players on that this list, there is no one other than Hall who comes anywhere even close to Artemi Panarin.
The Rangers have done an extraordinarily good job is replacing lost draft picks with free agent signings like Kevin Hayes, Vesey, Neal Pionk and John Gilmour. They haven’t gone after a marquee free agent forward in years. In fact, the last time the Rangers won out on the top offensive free agent in the market was 2011 when they signed Brad Richards.
The days of misguided deals with Scott Gomez, Theo Fleury and Bobby Holik are in the past. Hockey executives know what the proper commitment is and the expectations are for players. Artemi Panarin will still be 27 years old when next season starts. He has never scored fewer than 27 goals in a full season. He produces at a point-a-game pace and is durable, missing only three games in the last four seasons.
Ranger fans can only imagine what a top line of Zibanejad, Panarin and Kravtsov could produce. Adding a player of Panarin’s skill would position the Rangers for a return to playoff contention by the 2020-21 season if not next season. If the ping pong balls fall in New York’s favor and a top three pick is the reward, the rebuild moves even faster.
Next. Potential Ranger draft targets. dark
The key is not letting the opportunity to sign one of the top 20 NHL offensive players in his prime pass by. It just doesn’t happen that often.