Why would any of these teams (LA, CHI, NYI, NYR... and NJD) trade for him? 2 or 3 of them likely won't have the cap space (to land him and then re-sign him) unless they are trading one of their own big contracts... not sure how they are going to do that unless they are giving up a very good player (Kane Toews, Doughty, Kopitar, etc)... so why would they do that?
The other 2 are going head to head for the same player as a UFA.. why would they give up any assets when it is 50/50 they land the player as a UFA??
Panarin is the typical Russian player... most are motivated by money vs. team success, they are shrewd (can be viewed as greedy) negotiators, they get "moody" when things are not going their way on their current team, they strongly prefer big city markets, they are a higher risk to move back to their home country to play in the KHL... even mid-contract. For these reasons, I am against the Oilers using high draft picks or blue-chip assets going after any Russian players.
Some might view the fore-mentioned statement as being negative towards Russians... I will agree a couple points are, but I would suggest it is more so realism. I understand it is a very stereotypical statement and does not agree with all Russian players.
I also understand that some of the above statements can be applied to some Americans, Canadians, etc... but I would say it is more evident with Russian players.
