The Athletic\u2019s Katie Strang reported last year<\/a>. Panarin declined to comment when asked multiple times about the settlement.<\/p>\nPanarin also took a personal leave of absence from the team in 2021 after a Russian newspaper printed claims that he was involved in a physical altercation with a woman in 2011. The Rangers denied the allegations in a statement, saying they were an \u201cintimidation tactic being used against him for being outspoken on recent political events.\u201d (The month before the Russian newspaper article, Panarin posted a picture of Russia\u2019s then-opposition leader Alexei Navalny with a caption translated to \u201cFreedom for Navalny.\u201d)<\/p>\n
What Kings are getting in Panarin<\/p>\n
For King fans who prefer the club build for a bigger future than this 2025-26 season, the addition of Panarin will not satiate their wishes. However, when it comes to their current push to make the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season, this major move to add a supremely offensive talent should provide an injection for a team that\u2019s usually defensively stout but often struggles to put the puck in the net.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main goal is to win the Stanley Cup and if your GM thinks that adding somebody helps, it\u2019s always positive,\u201d Kings winger Kevin Fiala said after the team\u2019s morning skate, before the trade occurred. \u201cYou just take it. You\u2019ve got to accept it and do the best out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kings are third in the NHL in goals against per game (2.72) but have often been hampered by an offense that ranks 28th (2.57). With just a 15.6 percent success rate, their power play is also woeful \u2014 besting only Calgary, Colorado and Utah. It is apples to oranges, of course, in terms of who Panarin has played with in New York and who his teammates will be in L.A., but the winger\u2019s 57 points would make him the Kings\u2019 leading scorer by a large margin (Adrian Kempe was the previous team leader with 45). It will be on Kings coach Jim Hiller, whose future could be on the line, to find the best fits for Panarin at five-on-five and on the power play.<\/p>\n
It could be a boost for someone like Kempe, who signed an eight-year, $85 million contract extension in November, or Quinton Byfield, who has slumped to just 11 goals and 19 assists in 53 games after consecutive seasons topping 20 goals and 50 points. And it clearly shows what direction the Kings and first-year general manager Ken Holland are going in now and in the immediate future.<\/p>\n
On top of that, captain Anze Kopitar is retiring after this season and 36-year-old franchise stalwart Drew Doughty has this season and next remaining on his contract.<\/p>\n
Will this move help the Kings finally break their first-round hex after series losses in four consecutive springs to the Edmonton Oilers? First, they must qualify. It\u2019s a dogfight not only in the Pacific Division, but also for the two wild-card spots in the West. There is no guarantee that L.A. grabs a playoff berth, much less wins a round, but the organization is betting on Panarin giving the Kings a shot in the arm. As for the cost of Greentree, well, it\u2019s obvious that the thought of a retool or even a rebuild is being kicked down the road.<\/p>\n
Fiala, who has three more years left on his contract after this season, said he and other players couldn\u2019t get caught up in whatever decisions the Kings\u2019 front office makes. Furthermore, focusing on off-ice issues would distract them from performing well on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to imagine what would happen if we would get this and this and this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Still, the winger with 18 goals and 38 points added, \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of good players out there. Let\u2019s see.\u201d Now he and the Kings will see what comes of their latest big purchase. \u2014 Eric Stephens, Kings staff writer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 The New York Rangers traded star winger Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[769,43,763,751,44,448,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-454284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-fantasy-hockey","tag-headlines","tag-los-angeles-kings","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}