While nothing is set in stone, the Rangers are unlikely to exceed an offer in the seven-year, $11.25-million range if another team goes higher, the sources indicated to Brooks.
Panarin met with New York's management on Thursday, but the dynamic Russian winger is also reportedly being courted with lucrative offers from the Florida Panthers, New York Islanders, and Colorado Avalanche, among others.
He's arguably the top free-agent skater on the market this summer after recording 87 points for the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2018-19.
The Rangers are in the midst of a rebuild but have quickly gathered a deep group of assets that could accelerate the process of becoming competitive again. Among their best pieces are 2019 No. 2 overall pick Kaapo Kakko, while the team also has a projected $17.5 million in available cap space this summer.
After seven consecutive trips to the playoffs, New York missed out for the second season in a row in 2018-19, finishing 20 points outside the cutline with a record of 32-36-14.
With apologies to Artemi Panarin and Matt Duchene, the NHL's 2019 unrestricted free-agent class isn't teeming with star power - especially compared to the electric assortment of restricted free agents who are due new contracts this summer.
Mitch Marner, Mikko Rantanen, Brayden Point, and Patrik Laine headline the surge of young stars who are on the precipice of signing rich deals. Add Sebastian Aho, Brock Boeser, Kyle Connor, Timo Meier, Matthew Tkachuk, Charlie McAvoy, and Zach Werenski to the list, and it becomes apparent that the money they stand to command is bound to become a defining storyline of this offseason.
For the first time since 2013, when the Calgary Flames tried to nab Ryan O'Reilly from the Colorado Avalanche, it seems more likely that at least one enterprising franchise could attempt to acquire another team's RFA with an offer sheet.
Even if no general manager wants to cede up to four first-round draft picks, the highest compensation tier for signing another club's RFA, in pursuit of a top scorer such as Marner, ripe targets might be found in skaters of secondary stature - think Kevin Labanc of the San Jose Sharks or the Washington Capitals' Jakub Vrana - whose clubs are constrained by the salary cap.
As we wait to see if that scenario comes to pass, the history of offer sheets in hockey merits a refresher on entertainment value alone. NHL lore is littered with anecdotes of GMs expressing their contempt for the practice in strong terms: by alleging tampering, by griping that these transactions inflate salaries, and, in one infamous case, by challenging a rival executive to a fistfight in a barn.
Here's a rundown of five offer-sheet episodes that ruffled feathers and altered the face of the league.
2012: Flyers go in for Shea Weber
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Weber was a 26-year-old perennial All-Star and the Nashville Predators' captain when Philadelphia made a play to sign him in July 2012. The colossal deal - $110 million over 14 years - more than doubled the value of any previous NHL offer sheet.
The Flyers' offer seemed specifically tailored to price Nashville out of the picture. It was structured to pay Weber $52 million in signing bonuses over the first four years, including a 2012-13 season that looked threatened by a looming lockout.
However, the Predators had lost another No. 1-caliber defenseman in Ryan Suter just weeks earlier to the Minnesota Wild as a UFA. Unwilling to let his blue line be ravaged any further, Nashville GM David Poile matched the Flyers' offer instead of accepting four of Philly's future first-round picks.
The implications of the megadeal were sweeping.
Contracts exceeding eight years were outlawed in the CBA that resolved the subsequent lockout. The Flyers haven't won a playoff series since they missed out on Weber. Nashville traded Weber to the Montreal Canadiens in 2016 for P.K. Subban, with whom they reached the 2017 Stanley Cup Final - only to flip Subban to the New Jersey Devils last week to free up cap space in hopes of signing Duchene or another top forward.
Weber, now 33 years old and Montreal's captain, still has seven years remaining on his deal at an annual cap hit just shy of $8 million.
2007: Kevin Lowe provokes Brian Burke
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Lowe, then the GM of the Edmonton Oilers, didn't endear himself to his managerial counterparts when, in July 2007, he signed Buffalo Sabres forward Thomas Vanek to a seven-year, $50-million offer sheet, the most lucrative such deal in NHL history prior to Weber's.
Sabres GM Darcy Regier - who'd personally told Lowe that he didn't plan to let go of Vanek and then matched the offer within minutes - said afterward that Lowe must have thought he was bluffing and called Edmonton's gambit "an exercise in futility." Lowe retorted by saying Regier's reaction was "rather juvenile."
The exchange set the stage for Burke, GM of the newly minted Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks, to lash out at Lowe a few weeks later when the Oilers tendered a five-year, $21.5-million offer sheet to Ducks forward Dustin Penner, who'd earned a league-minimum salary of $450,000 the previous season. (Anaheim didn't match the offer and received Edmonton's selections in the first three rounds of the 2008 draft.)
Annoyed by what he considered an overpayment that elevated the going rate for young players, Burke said Lowe's offer was "gutless" and "an act of desperation for a general manager who is fighting to keep his job." That criticism sparked a rancorous feud that, a year later, prompted Lowe to call Burke a "moron" and an "underachieving wannabe" whose single Cup victory paled next to the six championships Lowe won during his playing days.
In 2011, a few years after the NHL warned Burke and Lowe they'd be fined if they didn't stop quarreling, Burke revealed that he'd tried to arrange a fight with Lowe through an intermediary, New York Rangers GM Glen Sather, even telling Sather that he'd rent a barn where the bout could be staged.
It all amounted to a great deal of hubbub over Penner, who scored more than 20 goals in three of his four seasons with the Oilers before his statistical output started to tail off.
1998: Hurricanes target Sergei Fedorov
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In 1997, Fedorov compiled a point-per-game playoff campaign that helped the Detroit Red Wings to the franchise's first Stanley Cup title in 42 years. In search of a new contract to start the 1997-98 season, he was prepared to dig in for a prolonged holdout.
The dispute stretched into that winter's Olympic hockey tournament in Nagano, Japan, at which point Fedorov signed a record six-year, $38-million offer sheet with Carolina.
The Hurricanes, a weak team that had just relocated from Hartford, front-loaded their offer with a $14-million signing bonus and an additional $12 million that Fedorov would be paid in a lump sum if his club made that season's conference final. The latter clause led the NHL to reject the deal, but an arbitrator overruled the league and deemed the contract valid.
The Hurricanes - owned by Peter Karmanos, a Detroit-area businessman who shared a bitter, longtime rivalry with Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch - would never have been on the line for the second bonus, as they wound up missing the 1997-98 playoffs by nine points.
Meanwhile, Illitch's Red Wings were left to foot the whole bill when they matched the offer, reintegrated Fedorov into the lineup after his return from Japan, and - in a feat that did wonders to soften the financial blow - stormed to a second straight championship.
Fedorov, immediately $26 million richer as a result of his holdout, decided to kick-start a charity for children in the Detroit area by donating his $2-million base salary for the following season. In 2002, he won the third and final title of his career when the Red Wings rolled to victory in the Cup Final against a surprising opponent: Carolina.
1992: Flames try to poach Teemu Selanne
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After drafting Selanne 10th overall in 1988, the Winnipeg Jets had to wait four seasons - a span that included a mandatory military stint in his native Finland - for him to cross the ocean to debut in the NHL.
But before Winnipeg could lock him into a contract at the end of that interlude, Calgary took advantage of Selanne's RFA status and signed him to a three-year, $2.7-million offer sheet - about $1.5 million more than the Jets wanted to shell out.
"There was a lot of angst in Winnipeg about, 'Was any player worth this kind of money?'" Selanne's agent, Don Baizley, told NHL.com in 2013. "I think he was really determined coming over under that sort of pressure. He was going to prove to people that he was a good player. It wasn't the offer sheet so much as the reaction to the offer sheet."
In the end, the price didn't deter Winnipeg GM Mike Smith from matching Calgary's offer, enabling Selanne to cement his place in the NHL record books as a member of the Jets. His 76 goals and 132 points in 1992-93 are still by far the most a rookie has ever produced.
Would Selanne have stayed in Calgary for longer than he lasted in Winnipeg? After a severed Achilles tendon and the 1994-95 NHL lockout cut short his second and third seasons, the Jets traded Selanne to Anaheim in February 1996, a few unhappy months before the franchise relocated to Phoenix.
1990-94: St. Louis' fixation on Scott Stevens
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In the first half of the 1990s, the Blues were locked on acquiring Stevens, a hard-nosed veteran who'd risen to stardom over eight seasons with the Capitals. St. Louis persuaded him to sign as an RFA in July 1990 with a four-year, $5.1-million offer sheet, which the Capitals declined to match.
For the right to make Stevens hockey's highest-paid defenseman, the Blues owed Washington five first-round draft selections, a debt that proved problematic the following offseason when St. Louis GM Ron Caron successfully offer-sheeted 22-year-old Devils forward Brendan Shanahan.
With so many of their first-rounders already bound for D.C., the Blues offered to send two promising young players, goalie Curtis Joseph and forward Rod Brind'Amour, to New Jersey along with two draft picks. The arbitrator assigned to the case sided with the Devils, who wanted - and ultimately received - Stevens as compensation.
In July 1994, days after the contract to which they'd originally signed him expired, the Blues again inked Stevens to an offer sheet, this time for $17 million over four years. Had this second attempt to acquire him concluded differently, he would never have captained the Devils to three Stanley Cups.
New Jersey, though, matched the offer and upped the ante by accusing St. Louis management of tampering. An NHL investigation later uncovered an overnight air receipt that proved Blues president Jack Quinn had sent the offer sheet to Stevens' agent, Richard Bennett, that May while the defenseman was still under contract with the Devils.
The probe, which took until 1999 to complete, resulted in NHL commissioner Gary Bettman forcing the Blues to yield a first-round pick to New Jersey and to pay the Devils $1.4 million.
"I don't look at something of this nature as a triumph," New Jersey GM Lou Lamoriello told reporters at the time. "I don't think the compensation could be severe enough. My request was five first-round picks, plus damages."
Zuccarello produced 11 points in 13 playoff games with the Dallas Stars this spring. He broke his arm blocking a shot in his Stars debut after being acquired from the New York Rangers before February's trade deadline, and ultimately posted a goal and two assists in two regular-season contests with his new club.
The crafty forward, who'll turn 32 in September, spent more than eight seasons with the Rangers, collecting 37 points in 46 contests in 2018-19 before the trade.
He's coming off the four-year, $18-million extension he inked with New York in March 2015.
Florida Panthers general manager Dale Tallon said on Sunday that he expected to meet with Panarin and his Columbus Blue Jackets teammate, Sergei Bobrovsky, at some point this week.
Panarin, arguably the NHL's top pending unrestricted free agent, has been able to speak with other clubs since the UFA negotiating window opened on Sunday. The free-agent signing period officially begins July 1 at noon EST.
Last summer, The Athletic's Aaron Portzline reported the Rangers were the 27-year-old winger's preferred destination.
New York holds about $17.5 million in cap space, with Jacob Trouba and Pavel Buchnevich among the team's players requiring new deals, according to CapFriendly.
The club and the goaltender are far enough apart in contract talks that a league source told The Athletic's Arthur Staple that Lehner will almost certainly play elsewhere next season.
After the unrestricted free-agent negotiating window opened Sunday, the pending UFA said he had no plans to talk to another team at that point. Last week, he said he loves the organization and wants to be back.
Lehner is coming off the one-year, $1.5-million pact he inked with New York last July.
The netminder, who'll turn 28 in July, was one of the best stories of the 2018-19 season. He won the Jennings Trophy along with teammate Thomas Greiss, was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, and won the Masterton Trophy, awarded annually to the player who best exemplifies perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.
During training camp last fall, Lehner revealed his bipolar disorder diagnosis as well as his struggles with substance abuse.
He had a career season on the ice, posting a .930 save percentage in 46 appearances while helping the Islanders complete a turnaround that also earned head coach Barry Trotz the Jack Adams Award as the NHL's top head coach.
The New Jersey Devils have gone a long way in adding significant star power to their roster early in the offseason, pulling off a blockbuster trade for blue-liner P.K. Subban and drafting American phenom Jack Hughes first overall.
New Jersey's moves have impressed star forward Taylor Hall, who can't wait to get going with his new teammates.
"As a player in the offseason, that's what you want to see," Hall said, per TSN. "It's exciting. We're going to have more than a couple new faces next year. Just injecting some new blood in the team is going to be really good."
Hall's 2018-19 season was tarnished by injuries - a disappointing follow-up to his Hart Trophy-winning campaign the year prior, when he carried the Devils to a playoff berth.
With Subban and Hughes now available to help carry the former MVP's load, Hall sees a turnaround for his team on the horizon.
"Whether he's playing on the power play or he's playing against the other team's top lines, he's going to be a guy that makes everyone else's jobs on the ice easier," Hall said of Subban.
"I'm really excited to play with him."
The developments come at an opportune moment for Hall, who is an unrestricted free agent next summer and intends to prioritize winning a Stanley Cup at this stage of his career.
Taylor Hall says he’s realizing he only has so many more shots to contend for Cup. Being on a contender will play heavily into free agency decision. Also says Devils have to make playoffs in 2020.
