from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,
The Blue Jackets realize that they’ve lost Artemi Panarin, their star left winger who still has a year left on his deal. They know that the 26-year-old wants to be in a big city with a large, vibrant Russian population, which means he’ll most likely end up back in Chicago, or maybe LA or somewhere in the Ranger-Islander-Devil metro-NY area.
Panarin will be an unrestricted free agent next July 1, after only four seasons in the NHL, and he has full control of the narrative and the pay rate — the latter likely to land around the $9.5M per season the Bolts recently handed fellow Russian Nikita Kucherov on an eight-year deal.
Boston can’t match any of those cities on the Russians-per-square-inch scale, but the Hub is a world-class city with a perennial playoff contender, and the Bruins could accommodate his salary. He would be the dream answer to landing David Krejci an elite winger on the second line, leaving the Bruins with arguably the two top left wingers in the game.
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