Artemi Panarin may be one of many Rangers moved if struggles continue
Although the team has picked up a couple of wins here and there, the New York Rangers are still struggling in the early portion of the 2025-26 season, and it has led many to wonder what the team’s future holds.
Through 11 games, the Rangers are 4-5-2, having lost three straight games before sneaking away with a 2-0 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night. However, it hasn’t quite led to renewed confidence in the team.
If the Rangers cannot bounce back in the near future, general manager Chris Drury may consider moving some key pieces, including scoring star Artemi Panarin. The Russian sniper is heading into the final season of his seven-year contract that he signed in July 2019. However, not only does he have a full no-move clause, but he carries a cap hit of $11,642,857, currently taking up 12.2% of the salary cap.
On Thursday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, David Pagnotta joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to discuss how Panarin and other members of the Blueshirts could be on the trade block if things don’t turn around.
David Pagnotta: There’s a lot of pressure because you’re in New York and your owner’s nuts. This is going to be an interesting one, because if this team can’t get going here, I don’t see a scenario where keeping Artemi Panarin makes sense for them. If they’re by the halfway point of the season, not in the mix, you have to look at moving him. … This is a tough little scenario for Chris Drury and the Rangers. So much so that I don’t even know if moving Panarin alone is all that they would consider doing. They moved out K’Andre Miller. They brought in Vladislav Gavrikov. They wanted to give more responsibility to [Braden] Schneider in the back end. He’s an RFA this summer, and he’s got [arbitration] rights. Do they finally look and consider moving him? Because they’ve been so reluctant to do that.
This is more than just a cosmetic change that needs to happen with the Rangers. You’re probably looking at not just Panarin, but if they don’t get back on track, you may have to look at some other pretty substantial moves here. The obvious other one is, what do they do with Mika Zabenejad…who has been very adamant about wanting to stay, and he’s got the full no-move [clause]. So, he’s probably in full control. But as Drury has shown us in the past, he doesn’t really care about no-moves.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…