1/23/26 | Elliotte Friedman said on 32 Thoughts that he thinks LA might be a fit for Panarin if he’s traded with an extension. He added that Panarin reportedly believes he can play for another 4-5 years and guesses that his next contract could be something like 4 years and $12.5 million per season or five years at $10 million. He continued “contract matters here because if it didn’t then he’d still be a Ranger.”
1/19/26 | Elliotte Friedman said on 32 Thoughts, “All year long people had said about Panarin that he wanted to be a Ranger and that the Rangers had gone to him earlier this year and asked if he’d be willing to take a Kopitar-type of discounted deal and he said no. His reaction on Saturday kind of confirmed that that was his first choice, that his preference was to stay. There is no doubt in my mind that all of these teams in the league are trying to figure out what this means for him, where does he want to go, what does he want to do and how does he want to go about this. It’s clear that he is still processing it and there is no easy answer.”
He added, “if you ask teams around the league what they believe, obviously they don’t believe there are a lot of places he wants to go and secondly, they do think that his preference will be an extension….the early indication is. that teams think he would rather move once than twice and his preference is an extension over two moves. We’ll see what kind of places appeal to him.”
1/17/26 | On Hockey Night in Canada, Elliotte Friedman said about Artemi Panarin, “the thing that has come out of there is everybody wants to know what his plans are. Where is he willing to consider? He talked briefly after they beat Philly today and it was obvious that he was still processing everything and didn’t want to say a lot. I think that is the biggest thing coming out of this and you are going to see a bunch of teams asking ‘will he talk to us? Rental? Would he sign? There is no question that is going to be one of the things that people look over in the next few weeks.”
Panarin said today that he was “confused” and that he is a “Ranger right now.” (The Athletic)
It was reported yesterday that Panarin was told by the Rangers that he would not be offered a contract extension.
It was reported earlier in the season that the Rangers approached Panarin about a short-term extension but that term may have been an issue if Panarin was looking for something longer-term in his next contract.
Adam Rotter: It’s going to be an interesting to see how this plays out because we don’t know how many teams, if any, Panarin would be willing to waive to and how many of those teams, likely all top-level or close to top-level contenders, can either afford to extend Panarin now, want to wait to see how it goes before extending him or want him just as a rental. The fear, from the Rangers standpoint, would be that if Panarin only wants to move once, maybe he only wants to do that in the summer and won’t waive. I think that is unlikely and that he will waive and that part of the Rangers calculus for announcing this when they did and telling Panarin when they did was to give him ample time to think about it before both the Olympic deadline and the trade deadline.