Report: Rangers' Artemi Panarin Would Love To Play With Panthers; Deal Would Be Difficult To Make
New York Rangers winger Artemi Panarin would reportedly "love to play for Florida," but the Florida Panthers would likely be unable to pull off a trade.
Video Transcript
Yeah, well, I think you nailed it right there, Andrew, by saying, Like, these two teams have been, you know, top of the league for years.
And I think that's the difference when you're looking at.
Like, why is this a better rivalry than the Battle of Alberta?
You know, the Battle of Alberta is just one team, the Edmonton Oilers.
And a Calgary Flames team that seems like they're headed for a rebuild.
Whereas Tampa and Florida, like, combined, they've won, you know, four Stanley Cups in the last, what, six years or so?
Yeah.
That, that's- that tells you, like, these the top two teams in the NHL, and it seems like every time they play, you're just kind of holding your breath, because you're waiting for guys to get hurt.
So, you know, the next time they play, if it's not a playoff game, You know, if I'm Jon Cooper or if I'm Paul Maurice, I'm like, All right, maybe don't play in this game.
All right?
We're gonna, we're gonna kinda call up some players from the A and, you know... Make sure that Kucherov doesn't get hurt.
Or a Sam Bennett or a Brad Marchand, it, it's getting to the point now where you're going, "All right, someone's gonna get killed here."
Yeah.
I like how, I mean, they kind of already do that, but in an opposite way.
I like how Scott Sabourin has become Ogie Ogilthorpe, where it's like...
They only call him up when they're playing against the Panthers.
And it's like, "You know what you're here for.
Just stir the pot."
I, I, I would say, though, it's like, it definitely is the best rivalry in the NHL, right?
Now, and it is kind of neat that, obviously, they're interstate rivals.
And this is something that I, I think, the American networks need to jump on.
Right?
And really sort of, like, pump this up.
Like, this could be like Yankees, Red Sox in baseball back in the day.
You know, before they were worse than the Blue Jays.
But, you know, you look at all the personalities on the teams, you look at the fact that they have high-end superstars on both sides.
And that they hate each other.
It will be interesting if they meet each other in the playoffs.
Because it can't be like all shenanigans all the time.
Because ultimately, you need to win the series.
And both teams, you know, think they can win the Stanley Cup this year.
And they probably could.
But you gotta be healthy to do so.
And if you are, you know, swinging at each other's heads for seven games in the first round, or even the second round, that's not necessarily the recipe for success.
So, I think a playoff series would be amazing, and it would have a lot of physicality.
But both teams would probably have to say to themselves, like, Okay, well, we can't be dropping the gloves like it's the Four Nations.
Like, we need to actually get some results here and make sure that, you know, everybody's hands aren't broken by the time we have to play Carolina.
