Jan. 16, 2026, 3:31 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
An end of era is about to come to the New York Rangers<\/a>. With a letter coming to fans from general manager Chris Drury informing them that a “retool” was coming<\/a>, die-hards know that deals are in the near future with the Olympic break and trade deadline approaching.<\/p>\n That’s going to include superstar Artemi Panarin, who will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. Reports say he won’t get an extension, which will all but guarantee he’ll be traded.<\/p>\n But to where? Let’s review some landing spots for the veteran who can score from anywhere on the ice and who could help a contender win a Stanley Cup (keep in mind he’s got a full no-movement clause):<\/p>\n Colorado Avalanche<\/p>\n Hey, if you’re the best team in the NHL and you want to shore up your chances to win a Stanley Cup, you go and get the biggest name on the market. It’s just that simple. Even if you’re making a trade without a guarantee of an extension, it’s an all-in move to win it all.<\/p>\n They keep falling short in the Eastern Conference and they need more scoring. Makes sense all around.<\/p>\n Washington Capitals<\/p>\n Hey, that would be fun. He and Alex Ovechkin could try to make a Cup run together, and then Ovi might retire and Panarin signs to stay in Washington.<\/p>\n Hmmmmm. The Sabres are suddenly awesome, and they’ve got some young prospects to deal if they want to make a rare playoff run. Wild!<\/p>\n Another young team moving into contention. Panarin helps them make the leap.<\/p>\n Their offense is pretty rough. But adding a name like Panarin could help all the pieces fall into place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 16, 2026, 3:31 p.m. ET An end of era is about to come to the New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[50358,193,192,144,5277,5,4,9492,50438,50393,50372,50380,50364,50435,50375,50363,50365,50361],"class_list":["post-411540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-accessfree","tag-avalanche","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-sstssportsnhl","tag-sstsnnhl","tag-tagbuffalo-sabres","tag-tagcarolina-hurricanes","tag-tagdetroit-red-wings","tag-taghockey","tag-taglos-angeles-kings","tag-tagnew-york-rangers","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115907010680309809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}