New York Islanders: Reaction to every free agency move, including missing out on Panarin

Reaction to losing out on Panarin

Not going to lie to you all, I woke up on Monday morning confident that the Isles were going to get the best player this free agency. I was convinced Lou would overpay for him and he would be in New York. As it turns out, I was right about the New York part, but not the correct team.

Despite various reports that stated it was down to the Isles and Panthers, Panarin is a Ranger, for the max seven years. It appears he will be making less AAV than he would have with the Isles.

Losing out on Panarin hurt. While his biggest knock is that he will not make players around him better, he is still an elite scorer and would have immediately made the Isles offense better than last year, with Mathew Barzal, he wouldn’t have needed to make anyone better, just himself.

He would have been an upgrade for the Isles, and it would have been an excellent asset. But also with that, I understand that losing out on Panarin does not kill any hopes of the Isles still improving.

One, and this is probably my primary reaction, is that we can’t be seeking instant gratification with this team. This team is still indeed staying on course, and changing the culture is going to take time and creativity, not just money. Panarin was still not convinced to come to the Islanders, so maybe their reputation is not quite fixed from the damage done by prior regimes.

Either way, it was humbling for the Islanders, but it shows they still have to prove to players they should want to come here, and hopefully one day take pay cuts to play on the Island one day, it was a very humbling moment to find out he was going to Manhattan instead of Brooklyn/Uniondale.

Also, it does sting that he went to the Rangers and not a team like the Panthers, it still makes the Islanders look like the “little”brothers of the rivalry, and that is a tough image to shake. However, the Islanders also can’t worry about the Rangers and their re-build and what Panarin will do to their cap. They need to stay on their course. It doesn’t matter that Panarin went to the Rangers, it matters he didn’t go to the Islanders.

Much like all the draft picks this season, it is not about instant gratification. Panarin seems like he would be the fancy new toy that changes the stigma about the Islanders, but we also don’t know how this will work out for both teams and Panarin at this point.

Everything takes time, we have been reminded that a culture change was still occurring for the Islanders despite moderate success last year.