{"id":163929,"date":"2025-08-21T14:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163929\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T14:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:03:10","slug":"will-artemi-panarin-sign-a-contract-extension-burning-rangers-questions-for-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/163929\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Artemi Panarin sign a contract extension? Burning Rangers questions for 2025-26"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a hockey perspective, the New York Rangers\u2019 signing of Artemi Panarin as a free agent in July 2019 has gone about as well as they could have hoped.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s led New York in scoring each of his six seasons and ranks first in franchise history in points per game (1.28). The team has made the Eastern Conference final twice with him as its top offensive producer. He\u2019s twice finished in the top five in Hart Trophy voting for the league\u2019s most valuable player.<\/p>\n

Now only one year remains on the seven-year deal, worth $11.6 million in average annual value, that brought him to New York. This leaves the Rangers at a massive crossroads. What comes next with Panarin is perhaps the team\u2019s biggest question entering the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not going to sign if he\u2019s not paid as a premier player,\u201d one Western Conference executive said. \u201cThat\u2019s what they\u2019re going to have to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, there is more to the Panarin decision than just hockey. In April, The Athletic\u00a0reported that Panarin and Madison Square Garden paid financial settlements<\/a> to a Rangers employee last year after she alleged that Panarin sexually assaulted her in December 2023. The Rangers did not publicly discipline Panarin, who played in every game in 2023-24 and missed only two games in 2024-25, both because of an upper-body injury.<\/p>\n

Panarin is coming off a 37-goal, 89-point season, the second-most goals of any season in his career, but it\u2019s his lowest rate of point production since coming to New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis top game is fantastic,\u201d said an NHL scout based in the East. \u201cBut the consistency, of course, wasn\u2019t there, along with the rest of the team, too. Definitely doesn\u2019t all fall on him. I haven\u2019t seen much of a regression in terms of his overall talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evolving-Hockey projects Panarin\u2019s next contract to come in at three years with a $10.1 million average salary. That lines up with Panarin\u2019s projected market value for the coming years, according to colleague Dom Luszczyszyn\u2019s model.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

New York has $29.6 million of projected cap space in the 2026 summer, according to PuckPedia. If Panarin re-signs with the Rangers, his cap hit will eat into that, as will the next contracts for multiple restricted free agents, namely Braden Schneider.<\/p>\n

There is a loaded class of pending unrestricted free agents in 2026, headlined by Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and Kirill Kaprizov. Still, it\u2019s also a real possibility that none of those stars reach the open market. If those players start signing extensions, Panarin\u2019s camp could potentially gain instant bargaining leverage.<\/p>\n

Though a dominant offensive player in the regular season, Panarin\u2019s production has not always translated to the playoffs.<\/p>\n

In 73 postseason games, he has 21 goals and 61 points \u2014 a paltry 24-goal, 69-point pace for a full season, well below his career average of 33 goals and 95 points. Though he delivered a Game 7 overtime winner against Pittsburgh in 2022 and an overtime goal against Carolina in 2024, he has never been better than a point-per-game player in the playoffs for the Rangers. That will have to factor into general manager Chris Drury\u2019s thinking, too.<\/p>\n

The Rangers\u2019 top-six forward group is full of players over 30. Mika Zibanejad, Vincent Trocheck and J.T. Miller are all 32 and under contract for at least four more seasons. The age of those players, as well as Panarin, will play into all of the Rangers\u2019 decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team wants to be a contender soon,\u201d said the East-based NHL scout. \u201cIt\u2019s not like they\u2019re wondering, philosophically, \u2018are we going to rebuild or are we going to pay him?\u2019 It\u2019s, \u2018we want to win now.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

Scouts believe Panarin could continue to produce at a high level, even as he enters his mid-30s.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially if you put him with the right guys, he\u2019s a really dangerous player,\u201d the Eastern-based scout said. \u201cA smaller, more skilled shifty guy like Panarin, I feel like he could play for a good handful more years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think his game will age just because of how smart he is and his skill level,\u201d a Western Conference scout added. \u201cThat\u2019s a very rare find, and I think that he will be able to adapt even as maybe his legs fall off a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panarin identified the Rangers as the team he wanted to play for when he was a free agent in 2019, and he likely passed up money to join. Would he do the same to stay?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe luxury is guys love playing in New York,\u201d said the Western Conference executive.<\/p>\n

New York would presumably love it if he were to take a deal similar to the one John Tavares signed with Toronto this summer.<\/p>\n

Coming off a 38-goal season at 34, the same age as Panarin will be next summer, the Maple Leafs center extended on a four-year, $4.389-million-AAV deal. That\u2019s a lot to ask, though, from a player of Panarin\u2019s stature. He had 49 goals and 120 points in 2023-24, after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s getting older, so he\u2019s probably not going to continue at a crazy level, but you never know,\u201d one Eastern Conference executive said. \u201cIt\u2019s a critical year for the whole organization. Looking at that team and what they have and what they\u2019re doing and where they\u2019re going, I think it\u2019s an incredibly important year.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Photo: Robert Edwards \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From a hockey perspective, the New York Rangers\u2019 signing of Artemi Panarin as a free agent in July…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":163930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[1302,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-163929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-new-york-rangers","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115067132625714302","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}