On Wednesday February 4, 2026, the day NHL rosters froze for the Olympic break, the New York Rangers traded star winger Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings.
In return, the Rangers acquired 20-year-old forward prospect Liam Greentree, a conditional third-round pick in the 2026 NHL draft, and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2028.
If the Kings win one playoff round this season, the third-round pick will become a second-round pick. If they win two playoff rounds, New York will also receive the fourth-round pick.
The success that the player known as ‘The Breadman’ had on Broadway places him in rarified air when it comes to Rangers history. Panarin’s 607 points with the Rangers rank ninth all-time in franchise history and his 1.26 points-per-game rank first.
In terms of Hart Memorial Trophy (The NHL’s Most Valuable Player award) voting, the Breadman finished third in 2019-20 and fifth in 2023-24. Notably, Panarin’s prime hit its climax in 2023-24 when, at the age of 32, he set a career-high with 120 points.
Panarin had a terrific tenure with the Rangers and goes down as the second-best forward in franchise history behind Mark Messier. While Messier didn’t quite average a point-per-game in his career as a Ranger, he captained the Rangers team that won the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in 54 years in 1994.
Every season during Panarin’s tenure from 2019-2026 as a Ranger was a winning one except for the current one, which Panarin will have played in about 60 percent of for the Rangers. But, ultimately, those Ranger teams fell short in the Stanley Cup playoffs and that is why Panarin will not go down as the best forward in Rangers history.
Rangers fans have expressed disappointment with the return the Rangers got for Panarin, but most of them don’t know how good a player Liam Greentree is.
Greentree is the captain of the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). He’s got above-average size for the NHL at 6-f00t-3, 216 pounds. He has played in 164 OHL games over the past three seasons (including the current one) and scored 109 goals and 257 points.
Greg Walters, Windsor’s head coach, had this to say about Greentree.
“Great player. Big, physical, strong, can score goals. He’s getting better every day and the improvements that we’ve seen over the last two years have been huge. And he continues to work on his 200-foot game, but, there’s probably not a better shooter in the OHL than Liam Greentree.”
From watching his highlights, I can vouch for that. Greentree has a wicked wrist shot which he can find the back of the net with from distance as well as in the low slot. He also possesses the size that the Rangers lack up front.
That being said, Greentree hasn’t even played in the American Hockey League (AHL) yet and it’s yet to be seen if he can carry over the immense success he’s had in the OHL to a professional league. Still, in Greentree, the Rangers got themselves a prospect who has real NHL potential.
Coming back to Panarin, Rangers general manager, Chris Drury, didn’t want to extend him because he does not play defense well. In support of this claim, Expected Goals Against Per 60 Minutes (xGA) is an advanced stat that measures the quality of scoring chances a player or team concedes while on the ice. For the 2025-26 season, Panarin has a 3.19 xGA which is 207th highest in the league, placing him in the 21st percentile or within the top 21 percent of the league in this statistic.
Stanley cup contending teams have top six forwards who play both offense and defense well. Think of Jonathan Toews, who was the captain of three cup-winning Chicago Blackhawks teams from 2010-15. Over the course of 16 seasons, Toews has a 131 plus/minus rating and is still playing at the age of 37 because he plays the game the right way.
For this Ranger retool to be a success they need to build around young players like Braden Schneider and veterans like J.T. Miller and Mika Zibanejad who are fully bought into playing the game the right way.
That’s what Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan had in Pittsburgh when he guided the Penguins to back-t0-back Stanley Cup championships in 2016-17 and that’s what Ranger fans should want going forward.
