The Los Angeles Kings are focused on a playoff push in captain Anze Kopitar's final NHL season. Could New York Rangers star winger Artemi Panarin be the key to the Kings' Stanley Cup dreams?
The Los Angeles Kings are in a precarious position right now.
The Kings are in ninth place in the Western Conference, but they have the same number of points as the Seattle Kraken and are two points back of the eighth-place San Jose Sharks, and the Kraken and Sharks have the tiebreakers over Los Angeles. The five teams below the Kings in the standings trail them by six points or fewer. So there’s precious little room for error for LA at the moment.
Compounding things is the fact that the Kings' star center and captain, Anze Kopitar, is halfway through his final NHL season. Los Angeles GM Ken Holland wants to send off Kopitar on a high note with a long Stanley Cup playoff run, and that makes us inclined to believe the Kings are going to use their $13.01 million in salary cap space.
From this writer’s vantage point, there’s an obvious target out there: New York Rangers left winger Artemi Panarin.
Rangers GM Chris Drury’s recent letter to the public has most people believing Panarin’s time as a Ranger is coming to an end by or before the NHL’s March 6 trade deadline. Panarin will be a UFA at the end of this season, and a Sportsnet report indicates he won’t be offered a contract extension. Panarin has a full no-movement clause, so he’s in ultimate control of his future.
Here’s where the Kings come in. Holland has more than enough cap space to fully absorb the rest of Panarin’s $11.6-million salary this season. More importantly, the Kings have a boatload of cap space next season – approximately $27.7 million in space. Holland has the cap flexibility to meet Panarin’s contract demands and still improve the team around him. Panarin has always felt like a big-city player, so the opportunity to go to LA and remain in a big city while helping them on a deep playoff run should be very attractive for him.
The Kings have the NHL’s third-best defense this year, averaging just 2.71 goals-against per game. Their offense is the league’s third-worst, at an average of 2.57 goals-for per game. Guess what Panarin can instantly improve? If you answered "offense," you answered correctly.
Panarin would fill a need, and the Kings have the financial wherewithal to meet Panarin’s financial needs. This is a situation that makes so much sense, it should’ve happened already by now.
Artemi Panarin and Quinton Byfield (Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images)The Kings have had the goal of getting past the first round of the playoffs for the first time since they won a Cup in 2013-14, but suddenly, they’re far from being a playoff team this season. Holland has every right to try and send off Kopitar with one final deep playoff run – and then, the Post-Kopitar Era begins for this franchise. They can instantly stabilize themselves by trading for a star forward who, even in a down year, is still a point-per-game player.
True to form, Panarin has notched 19 goals and 37 assists for 56 points in 50 games this year. And that’s on a bad Rangers team. Put him in a Kings uniform, and we’d guess Panarin’s production will rise to a notable degree.
We believe the Kings will only trade for Panarin if he agrees to a contract extension. The asking price on him, while high, would not be unreasonable, but less so if he’s purely a rental player for the rest of this season. He has a no-move clause he can stick to if he wants, and thus, it says here any team that lands him will surely have a rapid follow-up announcement about a Panarin extension.
Holland has all of his next first-round draft picks in the next three years, and he has four second-rounders in the next three years. Surely one or two of those assets would be attractive to Drury, we’d say. But the big selling point for the Rangers is the cap space they’d be getting in a Panarin trade, so Drury can’t ask for the sun and moon in a Panarin trade.
Panarin is calling the shots, so it’s up to Holland & Co. to make him a terrific pitch and sell him on a winning team, the California sunshine, and a three-or-four-year extension.
The Kings’ season could hinge on their play in the immediate weeks ahead, and this is why they need to expedite a Panarin trade. The sooner he gets there, the more games LA should be winning. And taking advantage of the Rangers’ trainwreck season to give Los Angeles' captain one final playoff run means Holland stepping up and pulling off a blockbuster move like this one.
The Kings have an obvious need, and in Panarin, they have a clear-cut solution.
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