Artemi Panarin “Genuinely Happy” With Blue Jackets’ Season

One of the biggest stories of this NHL season is the pending unrestricted free agency of Columbus Blue Jackets forward Artemi Panarin. After telling the Blue Jackets that he did not want to negotiate a long-term extension with the team in the summer, and then claiming he wanted all business to be finished by the start of the season, he put the team’s front office in quite a bind. GM Jarmo Kekalainen could keep the talented forward and hope that they can convince him at some point down the road, or trade him to try and get some value out of an asset before it expires. He has chosen the former up until this point, and it has the Blue Jackets in second place in the Metropolitan Division and pushing for a playoff spot.

Still, it wasn’t clear how the Panarin situation would resolve, given his apparent unwillingness to negotiate during the year and lack of decision on his future. Now, Brian Hedger of The Columbus Dispatch reports that Panarin and agent Dan Milstein will “discuss business” in late January when the Blue Jackets are on their bye week. That’s a bit different than the timeline presented by Pierre LeBrun recently, who said the two would talk over the holiday break in December. Milstein didn’t tell Hedger what exactly they would discuss, but did tell him that Panarin is “genuinely happy with the way things are going this season.” That at least should give a bit of hope to Blue Jackets fans that are hoping to retain the services of their best offensive weapon past this season.

Now 27, Panarin has dominated the NHL since coming over from Russia in 2015. First joining the Chicago Blackhawks, he found immediate chemistry with Patrick Kane and ended up with a 77-point season as a rookie—albeit an experienced one. He followed that up with another excellent season in Chicago before being dealt to the Blue Jackets in the summer of 2017 in exchange for a package including Brandon Saad, a move that was designed to give the Blackhawks some more cost certainty into the future. Panarin only had two years remaining on his contract, and this is the exact type of situation that Chicago was trying to avoid.

In the one and a quarter seasons since however, the Blue Jackets have been the obvious winner of the trade. Panarin recorded a career-high 82 points last season for Columbus and helped Pierre-Luc Dubois jump right into the NHL lineup and find some success in the offensive zone. The Russian winger has started this season off just as well, recording 23 points in his first 22 games and helping Columbus to their 13-8-2 record. That kind of production though will make him an extremely desirable asset on the open market, one who very well could sign a contract with an average annual salary upwards of $10MM.

That kind of extension may even be acceptable for the Blue Jackets, but at this point Panarin hasn’t even allowed them to make the offer. Though Milstein did meet with Kekalainen recently according to Hedger, it was not to discuss the pending free agent.  It seems as though the team must continue to wait patiently until some sort of decision is made in late January.

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