Does Trading For Artemi Panarin Make Sense?
The Bread Man is available
If there was one story that dominated my summer of 2019, it was the Avalanche’s pursuit of free-agent winger Artemi Panarin.
The Bread Man was available on the open market, and the Avs really wanted him. They wanted him so much that Joe Sakic and Josh Kroenke got on the owner’s private jet, flew to New York, wined and dined the Bread Man and then made an offer: Four years, $50 million. A $12.5 million per cap hit. I forget if that would have made him the game’s highest-paid player at the time, but if not it was close.
(It was so funny, too, getting all these details from my sources and having the rest of the Denver sports media completely ignore it. They just couldn’t stand to give me any credit, and still don’t. Thank Christ I don’t have to deal with the pettiness of those people anymore. None of them could break a story still if they were in a wet paper bag).
Well, Panarin is available again. This time, he’s still under contract with the New York Rangers, the team he chose over the Avs at a smaller cap hit ($11.6 million) but longer term (seven years). He will be a free agent again after this season. The Rangers have pretty much hoisted the white flag on their season, with GM Chris Drury essentially sending a letter of apology to all Blueshirt fans the other day.
