Panarin has been great and I made a comment in the last thread that at this point as much as I’ve enjoyed watching him play the right move would be to move on from him, Kreider, and Zibanejad in order to establish a new core.
If we can move him for a 1st rd pick and top 6 center/ wing then I do it. I think Panarin still has a lot of value in the league as a consistent top 10 scorer. After paying his signing bonus on July 1st he’ll have a salary of $1m and a cap hit of $11.64m. That could be enticing to a lot of teams. Big question will be if he is willing to relinquish his NMC to move somewhere else.
Thing is if we are moving on from Panarin then we need to make a pitch to sign Marner. Panarin drives a ton of offense for the rangers and we can’t expect to replace him by committee.
Netting Marner at say $13mx7 as a younger, more defensively responsible Panarin plus assets back from Panarin is a good start to reshaping the roster.
I also think Kreider can be moved in the summer but the biggest hurdle will be Zibanejad. From the media day it sounds like Zibanejad is planning to stick it out in NYC but unfortunately does not have the compete / talent to warrant his contract and we should look to move him while we still can and he has some value. Not sure if Drury learned any lessons from how he dealt with Trouba last offseason but Zibs is the key piece. I am guessing he has settled roots down in NYC and might be open to a local trade (NYI, NJD, PHI) but I can’t foresee a deal with any of those clubs.
It’s tough finding a landing spot for him. I think we can probably rule out Canadian teams, Buffalo, most of the Western Conference if not all.
Maybe he waives for a warm weather location a la Florida, Tampa Bay, Dallas, Nashville, or is amenable to other East Coast teams like Washington or Boston.
It’s going to be a challenge to get him to approve a trade and finding someone willing to take him on. For some reason I think Nashville or Boston might be good fits but we’ll probably have to take back a bad contract in exchange.
