Yesterday, the trade that everyone was waiting for in the 2025-26 season finally took place. The New York Rangers sent Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Liam Greentree and a third-round draft pick for 2026.
Soon after this deal was made public, the Kings announced that they had signed Panarin to a two-year contract worth $22 million. This means he will earn an average of $11 million each year. Because of this, he is now the player with the highest salary on the team.
Today, there were some talks about other teams that wanted Panarin before he went to the Kings. However, since Panarin stated he only wanted to join the Kings, those other teams quickly lost interest. Despite that, a story about the Seattle Kraken stood out. Reports said that the Kraken had offered Panarin a four-year contract with an average of $14 million a year. If he took that deal, he would have been tied with Leon Draisaitl from the Edmonton Oilers as the second-highest-paid player in the NHL next season. Some people are curious if the Kraken’s offer was even more than that.
This leads to the big question: did the Kraken really think Panarin was worth as much as, or more than, one of the top players in the game?
Kraken Make Massive Offer to Panarin
When a player like Panarin shows that he only wants to play for one specific team, the team that has him usually still looks around to see if they can get a better deal from others. This seems to be what the Rangers did in this situation. Reports indicate that the Kraken were ready to give Panarin between $56 million and $60 million over four years. If Panarin agreed to that contract, it likely would have led to a trade between the Rangers and Kraken that would have sent Shane Wright to New York.
Clearly, that never happened. Now, fans are questioning why Seattle felt okay to offer such a big deal in the first place. Panarin is not a better player than Draisaitl, and honestly, (except for Draisaitl’s first year), he never has been at any time during his career. Draisaitl has firmly positioned himself as one of the top three players in the NHL. Even though $14 million a year is a huge amount, it makes sense for him. He often scores close to 50 goals, gets over 100 points, and regularly helps his team make it to the playoffs.
Panarin doesn’t really meet those same expectations. The highest number of goals he has ever scored in a season is 49, which he achieved in 2022-23. He has only reached over 100 points one time in his career. And when the Rangers started to drop in the rankings, he couldn’t help them get back on track. He doesn’t lead plays effectively and doesn’t take control of games like top franchise players do, especially at this part of his career. At $14 million each year, Seattle would have had to pay that amount until Panarin was almost 39 years old. When you think about it this way, it might actually be a lucky break for the Kraken that he didn’t accept the offer.
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