I'm sorry, but anyone looking at this panarin arc from the past couple years thinking "yes, a soon to be 31 year old finesse winger should and will learn to not be a perimeter player in the playoffs and will return to higher danger traffic areas after he has obviously changed his playing style after suffering an impactful injury last year that affected his playing style all season simply bc the gm said so despite that player having his retirement contract and showing no interest to do the above things is really, as Bon Jovi said, livin' on a prayer.
No one here is expecting strome to suddenly be 55 percent at the dot, but you might as well hope for that too if he resigns.
People need some realistic expectations. Panarin just showed you for MONTHS where his game stylistically is headed, it's not good long term. Once a player develops a hesitation or dare I say fear for the middle of the ice it is very hard for them to go back to attacking those hard areas. Panarin just spent an entire season and playoffs avoiding it
Been beating this drum but I would say a majority, if not vast majority, of posters can’t get over POINTS. I get that he paced for 100 points in the regular season, but that’s a great reason to move on, in my opinion. Teams that don’t watch Panarin intently night in and out will see the opportunity to add a 90+ point winger to their roster. It’s a good opportunity for us to shed cap, add a solid younger top six guy with upside and a couple of quality prospects, gain massive flexibility for the future and get out of the Panarin contract before it becomes ugly.
The regular season production this year was a fugazi. This is a retread of my previous posts but his first year pacing for 100 points here, he was 1st in the league in even strength production and had the best 5v5 goal differential in the league. Anyone watching could tell he was a tenacious puck hound who didn’t hesitate to drive the net or shoot just as often as make a dazzling pass. This year, while pacing for 100 points, he was 18th in even strength production - his first finish outside of the top 10 ever, but also a continued drop from last season, when he was 10th for the first time ever - and 56th in the NHL in 5v5 goal differential which is a huge drop in impact from his first season. He also picked up 38% of his points on the PP.
That is not the trajectory of someone I want 11.6M committed to on a team that will need to retain its young core and keep this window open. People will say it’s one year, but even last year, before the Wilson incident, his 5v5 goal differential had dropped to 51st from 1st and it was his lowest ever finish in 5v5 production until this year. He’s trending in the wrong direction and, as you said, at 31 he isn’t going to suddenly start attacking the center of the ice again when he’s as secure as can be with his contract.
The way I see it is this - let’s pretend we just came off the season we had but Panarin didn’t exist and we had an extra 12M in cap space (I know we wouldn’t have had the exact same season and Panarin’s money wouldn’t just be sitting there, bare with me). Would you guys want to go out and sign Gaudreau for 11M? I wouldn’t. I’d much rather add a 7M guy who will put up 20 less points and keep that cap space for other upgrades. Same concept with bread. I’d rather trade him for a 6M guy and prospects, or some such, and make other upgrades to this team. Flip Panarin, go out and sign PLD as a UFA next year. Whatever. LW is Kreider, Lafreniere, Otthman… Bread isn’t going to play the game we need to win a Cup and we won’t ever afford a real 2C while giving him 12M.
