The Rangers Need to Consider Moving On From Artemi Panarin
The Breadman has been a star on Broadway since he signed with the Rangers in 2019. But with the team currently in a free fall, it's time to consider moving on from Panarin to bring back help for the future.
The lights always shine brighter on Broadway. You can feel like a god among men winning in New York City, but there is no hiding from those bright city lights that vividly illuminate failure as much as they spotlight success. The New York Rangers have discovered this recently, and all the media coverage around their current descent into mediocrity would have one thinking the team had no hope.
Objectively speaking, the Rangers are only a few points out from a wild-card playoff spot. Yet things still feel so bleak. Why is that? Well it’s the way it all went down. It’s the lackadaisical effort from players night in and night out. The core group of this squad has now had more than several kicks at the can with different coaches and supporting casts. Now it’s the reported players rallying against the GM and what many have described as a cold-hearted regime that’s been bad for business. The expectations of this team vs. the reality of this team are so far apart now that I fear they may never come back together.
So, with all that being laid out, how does the team turn it around and get past this?
At some point soon, if not already, Drury or whoever the GM is at the time will have to decide whether this season is salvageable. Friends, things aren’t looking great. The team has been on a hopeless slide, and their level of hockey does not seem fixable with one or two roster tweaks. Things may get uglier fast, considering the rest of their December schedule matchups are against solely elite-level teams. It hurts to say, but it’s actually well past time to say it: the team needs to make some significant changes.
Drury has backed himself into a corner with some contracts, and I’m not going to sit here and openly state extending Igor Shesterkin or Alexis Lafreniere this season was an outright mistake. Still, the team needs to consider the assets that their players would bring back in return. It’s the end of an era. And with that end, no one is safe. This brings us to one player on the roster who could bring back a haul—as tricky as it would be to trade him both emotionally and logistically.
That player is Artemi Panarin.
