The Russian Runaway Who Shocked the NHL

How Artemi Panarin walked away from millions, proved everyone wrong, and became the King of New York.

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In 2015, Artemi Panarin was offered a blank check to be the face of Russian hockey. He turned it down. Instead, he signed a cheap entry-level contract to be a nobody in America, in a league that had already rejected him twice.

What followed is one of the most remarkable stories in modern hockey: a kid from a Siberian coal town, passed over by every NHL team, who bet on himself so many times and so hard that the sport eventually had no choice but to crown him.

This is the story of Artemi Panarin — undrafted, unafraid, and ultimately unstoppable.

The Grandfather’s Bet

Panarin was born in 1991 in Korkino, a small industrial town on the edge of Siberia. It wasn’t just poor. It was the kind of place described as an environmental disaster zone, choked with pollution from coal mining, with high crime rates and little opportunity. His parents divorced when he was three months old, and both largely disappeared into the harsh grind of the post-Soviet economy. From infancy, Panarin was raised almost entirely by his maternal grandparents.

His grandfather, Vladimir Levin, became the central figure in his life. Vladimir had played amateur hockey himself and recognized something in his grandson early. He made a decision that would change both their lives: he would give everything he had to fuel that spark.

The sacrifices were enormous. Vladimir bought Panarin his first pair of skates and often bought him food when the family had none. The local rink in Korkino was a wreck, so Vladimir drove his grandson 25 miles each way — multiple times a week, in a beat-up old car — to a better hockey school in Chelyabinsk. It was a financial and personal burden most people wouldn’t accept for their own child, let alone a grandchild.

Panarin has never been subtle about what that meant to him:

“My grandfather is the most important person in my life. He did everything for me. He took me to practice… Without him, I would be nothing. I would probably still be in Korkino, drinking beer on a bench.”

That debt, unspoken but ever-present, became the engine driving everything that followed.

From Goon Squad to Gagarin Cup

Despite his emerging talent, NHL scouts weren’t interested. Panarin was eligible for the NHL Entry Draft in both 2010 and 2011. All 30 teams passed. Twice. The label on his file was familiar and brutal: too small, too frail, a “perimeter player” whose skills wouldn’t survive the smaller North American ice.

He started his professional career with Vityaz Chekhov in the KHL — a team notorious for its brawlers, not its playmakers. For a small, skilled player, it was a daily survival exercise. He learned to use quickness where others used size.

His career turned when he was traded to the powerhouse SKA St. Petersburg, where he was paired with former NHL superstar Ilya Kovalchuk. He blossomed. By 2015, he had helped lead SKA to a Gagarin Cup championship and was one of the biggest names in Russian hockey.

The KHL was prepared to make him a very rich man to stay.

He said no.

The First Runaway: Betting on Himself

On April 29, 2015, Panarin signed a cheap, two-year entry-level contract with the Chicago Blackhawks. No guaranteed roster spot. No English spoken. No friends in the building. He was walking away from a secure fortune for a shot at a league that had already told him, twice, that he wasn’t good enough.

The Blackhawks were a dynasty — three Cups in six seasons, a roster full of established stars. Panarin wasn’t just showing up; he was trying to crack one of the most competitive lineups in hockey.

What happened next nobody saw coming.

Head coach Joel Quenneville put the unknown Russian rookie on a line with Patrick Kane. The chemistry was immediate and spectacular. Panarin and Kane could barely talk to each other, but Kane would later describe what they had as “hockey language.” They just understood each other on the ice.

Panarin’s rookie season was one of the greatest by an undrafted player in modern NHL history:

• 30 goals, 47 assists, 77 points
• Top 10 in the entire league in scoring
• Calder Memorial Trophy — NHL Rookie of the Year

The player every team passed on twice had just beaten out Connor McDavid for the league’s top rookie honors. The kid from Korkino had arrived.

Proving He Was More Than Kane’s Sidekick

Two spectacular seasons in Chicago earned Panarin a massive raise — and a trade he didn’t want. Facing a severe salary cap crunch, the Blackhawks moved him to the Columbus Blue Jackets on June 23, 2017.

The knock on him now was a different flavor of disrespect: maybe he was just a product of Patrick Kane. Maybe without his superstar linemate, he’d fade.

Columbus answered that question immediately.

In his first season with the Blue Jackets, Panarin posted a franchise-record 82 points. In his second, he broke his own record with 87 points and led Columbus to one of the most stunning playoff upsets in recent memory — a four-game sweep of the 62-win Tampa Bay Lightning, one of the most dominant regular-season teams in NHL history.

The Blue Jackets offered him a massive eight-year extension to stay. He wouldn’t negotiate.

Panarin had earned the right to free agency, and he was going to use it.

The Second Runaway: King of New York

Playing out the 2018–19 season as a “lame duck” — knowing everyone knew he was leaving — he still poured everything into the ice. That’s who Panarin is.

On July 1, 2019, he signed a 7-year, $81.5 million contract with the New York Rangers. His $11.64 million average annual salary made him one of the highest-paid players in the league.

The undrafted kid from a Siberian coal town was now the face of a franchise in the biggest market in North American sports.

But what followed the contract signing was darker than anything hockey had thrown at him.

The Hit Job

Days after signing in New York, Panarin did something Russian athletes almost never do: he openly criticized Vladimir Putin. He said he no longer believed Putin knew “what is right and wrong” and called the regime “lawless.”

For a year and a half, nothing happened. Panarin was brilliant in New York, a Hart Trophy finalist who looked untouchable.

Then, in February 2021, the response came.

A fabricated story surfaced in a pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper. Panarin’s former KHL coach, Andrei Nazarov — a vocal Putin supporter — claimed that back in 2011, Panarin had assaulted an 18-year-old girl at a hotel bar in Latvia.

The Rangers issued an immediate and forceful denial, calling it a “fabricated story” and a political “intimidation tactic.” The timing left no room for ambiguity about what this was.

This was the hit job. And it worked — not on Panarin’s reputation, but on his state of mind.

He was less worried about himself than about his family still living in Russia. He took an indefinite leave of absence. He missed nine games. For a player who had spent his entire life running toward pressure, he had finally been stopped by something bigger than hockey.

He Wouldn’t Be Silenced

Panarin returned to the Rangers not broken, but resolute.

The seasons that followed were the best of his career:

• 2021–22: 96 points
• 2022–23: 92 points
• 2023–24: 49 goals, 71 assists — 120 points, career highs, one of the most dominant offensive seasons in Rangers franchise history, Hart Trophy finalist

The numbers tell part of the story. The rest of it is harder to quantify: what it means to come from nothing, to be told repeatedly you’re not enough, to face down a political machine trying to destroy you — and to keep showing up.

What Panarin’s Story Actually Means

His on-ice legacy is clear. He is living proof that being undrafted is a footnote, not a sentence. His creativity, vision, and competitive fire are a standing argument against the scouting consensus that dismissed him.

But his off-ice legacy may matter more.

In a world where athletes — especially Russian athletes with families back home — stay quiet about politics, Panarin spoke. He paid a real price for it. He faced a coordinated smear campaign backed by one of the most powerful governments on earth, and he didn’t fold.

He is the rare thing: an elite athlete who is also, quietly, genuinely brave.

The grandfather who drove 25 miles each way on a frozen Russian road made a bet a long time ago. Panarin has been paying it back ever since — with interest.

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