An interesting story emerged from Columbus, Ohio this weekend.
In a free agent season sparse in any news, this one seems disturbing.
The Blue Jackets’ Artemi Panarin has informed the club that he is not willing to negotiate a long-term contract.
Panarin entered the final year of two-year deal he is working through after being traded to the Blue Jackets from the Chicago Blackhawks. He will be an unrestricted free agent 1 July 2019 and turned down an eight-year deal for Columbus ahead of this year’s free agency.
“It’s about, does he want to spend the next eight years in Columbus?” Panarin’s Daniel Milstein said in an interview with The Athletic on Sunday. “That’s the only thing at stake right now. If it was a two-year deal we probably would have done it. But it isn’t a two-year deal. It’s [going to] have to be an extended, seven- or eight-year deal put in place.”
Panarin has been an elite player since landing in the NHL; last season he picked up 82 points on 27 goals playing 82 games for the Hawks and Jackets.
“Artemi is an elite National Hockey League player,” General manager Jarmo Kekalainen said in June. “Our position has been that we want him to be a Blue Jacket for many years, and that has not changed. He has a year left on his contract, so there is plenty of time to work toward that end. Should anything change moving forward, we will address it at that time and any decision we make will be in the best interest of our club.”
The question seems to be whether or not Panarin wants to spend eight years in Columbus.
On the upside in Columbus, the Jackets signed Riley Nash to a three-year deal on 1 July after Nash opted out of the Boston Bruins’ organization.
“It’s going to be great to add a center, a right-handed center that we don’t have, and I think we got it done with a contract that we like – both the value and the term,” Kekalainen said on NHL.com. “You need the right-handed center for that side of the ice, for the face-offs. It’s really hard to go against a right-handed center, on his strong side, with a left-handed guy who’s on his weak side. So, when you look at his stats, at his face-offs, you can see a real clear correlation.”
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