I wonder how much of his stats are due to the fact that he plays with Kovalchuk as a linemate? While their impressive the KHL is a crap shoot in regards to talent and teams. Hell, Matt Ellison and Nigel Dawes are top 10 in scoring and they couldn't even hack it in the NHL on shitty teams.
Panarin also has a clause in his contract that stats that if he doesn't make the Hawks roster, he can go right back to the KHL. So it's NHL or bust for him.
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I don't think they were all that much linemates as they both mainly play LW, and Kolvcheck often had some Dadonov guy on his RW side. But there still is a matchup problem for teams having those two dominant forces matchup. When you look across the league by some results, it kinda does seem there is just 4 dominant teams in the KHL and the rest are significantly below. So his team seems kinda loaded but then again, so are the Hawks and if hes in the Hawks top 6 at LW that same situation applies.
There's talk that the guy who centered next to Panarin may come over to the NHL as well but his rights are held by Florida currently until July.
It's also interesting Anders Nilsson, who the Hawks got in the Leddy trade, was on the team that lost in the Gagarin Cup Finals to Panarin/Iyla's team. So I wonder if getting to the finals influences his desire to go back to NA to try it out. I wouldn't think it's likely still, but if Crawford is traded they may try to lure him over with that opening. Also oddly, Salak was good in the playoffs there but that's a mental case from the past.