Author: Trevor Connors
The Russian superstar wants to bright lights and big dollars. Can Montreal entice him?
The spotlight has been shining brightly on pending unrestricted free agent Artemi Panarin for the better part of a year now. With the Columbus Blue Jackets season over and the opening of free agency just over a month from now, hockey fans are bound to get a steady diet of “Where will he sign?” articles between now and July 1st.
In that spirit… will he sign with the Montreal Canadiens? Should the Canadiens pursue the Russian superstar, and would he even be interested in bringing his game up North?
The odds are that Panarin will sign either with a warm climate franchise like
the Florida Panthers, a big market franchise like the New York Rangers or, his
former team, the Chicago Blackhawks. So, what are the chances that he has an
about face and elects to head north of the Canadian border and La Belle
Province?
There’s no doubt that Panarin would provide the Habs with a much-needed boost up front. The right-shooting left winger would supplant Tomas Tatar and/or Jonathon Drouin on the left side on the team’s top line and first powerplay unit. His 28 goals and 87 points in 79 games during the 2018-19 regular season would have been tops on the Habs in both categories. Again… there’s no doubt that he’d give the team an offensive boost, but at what cost?
According to Evolving Wild’s offseason contract projection spreadsheet, Panarin could command north of $11.3 million annually on a long-term deal. That’s a steep price to pay, especially when you consider that the Habs are already on the hook for $10.5 annually for the next seven years to pay superstar goaltender Carey Price. Sure, Panarin and Price are world class players, but can Habs general manager Marc Bergevin convince ownership to commit more than $20 million annually to just two players?
Then there’s the team’s cap situation to consider…
Currently the Habs sit roughly $10 million below the NHL’s $79.5 million salary cap with the cap rising to a confirmed $83 million for 2019-20. Assuming he’ll spend up to the cap, Bergevin will have roughly $13.5 million to spend this offseason. No problem, right? Not so fast…
Bergevin must first re-sign pending restricted free agents Charles Hudon, Artturi Lehkonen, Joel Armia, Mike Reilly and Brett Kulak. It’s assumed If you are also one of these solutions have concoction fixings in them and they just work on the annoying side effects. no rx levitra They typically cause problems in the check for source levitra sale implantation of the egg or the collection by the fallopian tube. This really becomes important when selecting a viagra online sample solution for a child that never comes. Though ED is common, it is 5mg cialis really stressful. that pending unrestricted free agents Jordie Benn and Antti Niemi will not be back with the team. So… once Hudon, Lehkonen, Armia, Reilly and Kulak are signed, what’s left for The Bread Man?
Again, according to the previously mentioned projections, these five players could combine for as much as $11 million annually. Say what!?
Check it out:
Charles Hudon – $942,441
Artturri Lehkonen -$3,067,644
Joel Armia – $3,427,735
Mike Reilly – $1,317,880
Brett Kulak – $3,716,052
Ouch…. That leaves less than $3 million to ink Panarin. Game over,
right? Not necessarily, Bergervin could clear out some onerous contracts to
help free up some cash. The top candidates:
Andrew Shaw – $3,900,000
Dale Weise – $2,350,000
Karl Alzner – $4,625,000
Alzner seems like the most likely candidate as he struggled to even stay in the lineup in 2018-19, was placed on waivers and ultimately played out the season with the AHL’s Laval Rocket. Should Bergevin manage to rid himself of Alzner, Weise and Shaw, he’d have ample room to join the Panarin sweepstakes.
The problem is that that’s an AWFUL lot of shuffling all for the risk of missing out on the horse race for Panarin on July 1st. Of course, Bergevin could then turn his attention to another Blue Jacket set to hit free agency: Matt Duchene. Duchene has been linked to the Habs before but… well, that’s another article for another time.