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.