Rangers trade Artemi Panarin to the L.A. Kings

He was, without doubt, the greatest free agent signing in Rangers history. But Artemi Panarin’s time with the Blueshirts is over. The retooling Rangers traded their Russian talisman to the Los Angeles Kings Wednesday, just before the NHL’s Olympic roster freeze went into effect, in exchange for prospect Liam Greentree and a pair of conditional draft picks.

An NHL source said the Rangers are retaining 50% of Panarin’s $11.64 million salary cap hit.

“Artemi is an incredible player, arguably the best free agent signing in the 100-year history of the franchise,’’ Rangers GM Chris Drury said in a Zoom call with local reporters Wednesday night. “He deserves a chance to win, and we want to give him that chance as we retool the team. It’s never easy to move a player of Artemi's caliber, but it's provided us an opportunity to accumulate valuable assets for the future.’’

Drury said he found out late Wednesday morning that the Kings were the only team Panarin – who had a full no-move clause in his contract – would agree to go to. Naturally, that left Drury with no leverage to negotiate a better deal. Nevertheless, Drury said he is “excited with the return we got with Liam and a draft pick.’’

Greentree, 20, was a first-rounder by the Kings in the 2024 draft (No. 26 overall). He is a 6-2, 207-pound, left-shooting right wing and the captain of his junior team, the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL, where he currently has 23 goals and 22 assists in 34 games.

The draft picks in the deal are a 2026 third-round rounder that will be the better of the two third-rounders the Kings currently own. That pick will become a second-rounder if the Kings win a playoff series this year. And if they win two, then the Rangers get a second-rounder in 2026 and an additional fourth-rounder in 2028.

According to reports, Panarin agreed to a two-year extension at $11 million per year with the Kings.

The deal comes almost three weeks after Drury threw in the towel on the season Jan. 16 and announced that it would under go a “retool.” That day, he met with Panarin, 34, and informed him that he wouldn’t be offering him a new contract, and would instead work with him to trade him to a destination of his choosing.

Drury said he did try to negotiate a contract extension with Panarin last summer, early in the season, and at midseason. But as the Rangers continued to struggle, and the prospect of making the playoffs became dimmer and dimmer, “it became clear to us as an organization, (that) the right thing to do is to do was to do this retool, which is why we did the letter.’’

Panarin, who signed a seven-year, $81.5 million contract with the Rangers as a free agent in 2019, led the team in scoring every year he was on the team, including this season, when he had 19 goals and 38 assists, for 57 points, in 52 games. He had been held out the last three games to lower the risk of injury prior to a trade.

In his six-plus seasons as a Ranger, he played 482 games, scoring 205 goals, with 402 assists, for 607 points. He is eighth on the Rangers’ all-time list in assists, and ninth in points. And he is the franchise’s all-time leader in assists per game (.83), goals created per game (.45) and points per game (1.26).

In his NHL career, which started with Chicago in 2015 as an undrafted free agent, he’s played 804 games, scoring 321 goals, with 606 assists, for 927 points.

“He's one of the best Rangers of his generation,’’ coach Mike Sullivan said after Panarin was first held out of the lineup Jan. 28 against the Islanders. “And you know, he's not an easy guy to replace when he's not in the lineup. But everybody understands it.’’

In a Jan. 4 interview with Newsday, Panarin seemed to know there was a good chance he would be traded, and he said he was at peace with that. He had gotten off to a slow start and said he was “worried about a few things’’ early on.

But after he started playing better, he stopped worrying, he said.

“Now I'm OK,’’ he said at the time. “Now I'm totally fine.’’

Asked what had changed, he said, “I guess I feel I’ve done everything I can, and what I have to do… So from my side, I did everything right.’’

With Panarin gone now, and defenseman Carson Soucy having been traded to the Islanders last week, Drury was asked if he intends to make a lot more big moves before the Mar. 6 trade deadline, or just a few small ones.

“Well, it's all to be determined,’’ he said. “We're looking at different things every single day.”

The roster freeze went into effect at 3 p.m. Wednesday, and will last until 11:59 p.m. Feb. 22.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.