Artemi Panarin has never thought about this season being the Rangers' last crack to win together.
Jacob Trouba kind of surprised everyone at training camp on Thursday when he said that this season could mark this New York Rangers core’s ‘last crack’ at winning a Stanley Cup together.
With multiple key players still under contract following the 2024-25 season including Artemi Panarin, Adam Fox, Chris Kreider, Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad, Trouba’s comments came off as a little bit puzzling.
When asked if he agrees with what Trouba said, Artemi Panarin was a little bit confused, but when the exact statement was clarified to him, he didn’t appear to echo the same opinion as the Rangers’ captain.
“I have not thought about that before, so I’m not thinking.”
Trouba’s words could have been a bit misconstrued as he didn’t necessarily say the Rangers championship window is closing he most likely meant this is the last year where this specific core will be together, which is not wrong.
The Rangers will have some major cap decisions to make and won’t be able to keep everybody on the roster.
Players are entitled to have their own viewpoint on the future of the team.
Trouba seems to sense the end nearing for this group of players, while the thought of that has not even crossed Panarin’s mind.
The strange part to their two reactions though was Trouba was confident about the upcoming season being the last crack for this group as opposed to Panarin who had trouble even understanding what he was being asked about.
This core of Trouba, Panarin, Kreider, Zibanejad, Fox, K’Andre Miller, Igor Shesterkin among some other players have been around for a long time and really laid the groundwork for the Rangers to compete for the Stanley Cup, so it would be sad to see this year being their swansong.
However, losing players while sad is also just a part of the business and it’s natural for these sorts of things to occur.
Rangers general manager Chris Drury will have some tough choices to make that will ultimately dictate what the future holds for the organization.
