Can the Florida Panthers remain a powerhouse next season?
In hockey, as in poker, sometimes you can play a very good hand and still lose. The Florida Panthers had every reason to think they were holding all the right cards heading into the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs. Now, just 10 games after they started their quest, they have been left to ponder what might have been and what happens next.
The Panthers cruised to the Presidents’ Trophy with a stellar 58-18-6 record for a total of 122 points, the fourth highest total of a regular-season champ in the 36-year history of the award. In the process, the Cats scored more goals than any other team in the salary cap era. They even bolstered their already contending team at the deadline with coveted acquisitions Claude Giroux and Ben Chiarot. The Panthers were a solid bet to make a deep run and a front-runner to hoist the Cup.
The playoffs got off to a good enough start for the Panthers, as they managed to get by the Washington Capitals in six games in their first-round matchup. It was a gritty performance but certainly not a dominant one. Their time basking in the Florida sun was short-lived, as they quickly ran into some dark clouds and a few flashes of lightning up the road in Tampa. While a few players (most notably Carter Verhaeghe) were stellar for the Panthers throughout the two playoff series, not enough players were able to replicate their great regular-season performances, and the vaunted Cats’ power play just never showed up. There is no shame in losing to the two-time defending Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning, but going down without a single victory in the series and having a 3.2-percent power play proficiency in the entire playoffs will lead to some significant soul searching this off-season.
Discussion will go on about whether the Panthers’ quick second-round exit was a case of a tough opponent, an inopportune time to go cold or a roster not built for playoff hockey. It might be parts of all those things. Regardless, this doesn’t have to be the end of the road for Florida. They still have an abundance of talent and a large part of their core signed through next season. However, if it’s still going to be #timetohunt in South Florida next season, it will require a masterful job by GM Bill Zito this off-season. The Cats’ salary-cap situation is about to become a whole lot more complicated.
Significant and well-deserved extensions will kick in on July 1 for Aleksander Barkov (who will go from a $5.9-million cap hit to a $10-million cap hit) and Verhaeghe (who will go from a $1-million cap hit to $4.167-million cap hit). Florida will also have to contend with $6.575 million in dead money resulting from its earlier buyouts of Keith Yandle and Scott Darling (up from the $3.525 million in dead money those two players cost this past season). Add to that a further $637,500 in dead money relating to the 2021-22 performance bonuses earned by rookie forward Anton Lundell and goaltender Spencer Knight, which the Cats were not able to fit into their cap this season and thus need to carry over to 2022-23.
The Panthers do get some relief with money also coming off the books, first in the form of Roberto Luongo’s $1.092-million cap recapture penalty finally ending, and then with the disappearance of the $1.325-million salary retention that Florida agreed to take on for the end of the 2021-22 regular season to facilitate Max Domi’s trade from Columbus to Carolina (a very smart use of Aaron Ekblad LTIR money to essentially buy back a draft pick at the trade deadline).
With the additions and subtractions noted above, the Panthers will have an incremental $8.53 million in commitments against the cap for 2022-23 that they did not have this year, before they make a single roster move.
You can bet that will have a big influence on the off-season.
The good news is that the Panthers are basically set in goal and on defense. The blossoming Knight is still on his entry-level deal for one more year, and Sergei Bobrovsky had a solid year, but he and his $10-million salary cap hit likely aren’t going anywhere. Five of the top six defensemen remain under contract, and part-timer Lucas Carlsson can be brought back cheaply as a restricted free agent with no real clout in arbitration. Veteran defensemen Chiarot, Robert Hagg and Markus Nutivaara (who was limited to just one game this year due to injury) will be unrestricted free agents, and it’s hard to see the Panthers bringing any more than one of them back, and even then only if a deal comes with a pay decrease.
Up front, the Panthers have a solid returning group but some definite question marks. Prize deadline acquisition Giroux, as well as pesky fourth liner Noel Acciari, winger Maxim Mamin, late-bloomer Mason Marchment and grizzled vet Joe Thornton, are all unrestricted free agents, and the Panthers will have to choose who they think fits best in terms of playing style and cap hit. There is also Eetu Luostarinen, whom the Panthers control as a RFA, but even he will be challenging to fit in, as he may merit a slight raise after a 26-point season and solid play as a third-line center. They will also want to make room for Grigori Denisenko, their top forward prospect.
In all, the Panthers currently have $41.017 million tied up in nine forwards, $19.417 million tied up in their defensemen and $10.925 million in their two goalies. That’s $71.36 million plus the $8.53 million of dead money referred to above, totalling $79.89 in committed money. If you’re scoring at home, that leaves $2.61 million from the $82.5-million salary cap to sign their unsigned players, including the RFAs. It’s not enough, especially if the Panthers hope to be anywhere near as good as they were this year.
Zito will need to get creative and may need to move a higher priced player or two in order to free up some cap room and tweak the roster. One option might be to deal Patric Hornqvist, who at 35 is still productive but in decline yet carries a cap hit of $5.3 million. The Panthers can’t afford to retain salary, so that means they could look at adding a draft pick or prospect as an enticement for someone to take on the extra cap. Only problem is that the Panthers already dealt away their first-round pick this year and in each of the next two seasons, their second-rounder this year and in 2023-24 and their third rounder in 2022-23, plus defenseman Ty Smilanic in the Chiarot deal. Dealing any more draft picks or prospects will set the team’s future back dramatically, so it won’t be Zito’s first choice as a course of action.
The Panthers might have seen the cap crunch coming, but they had what they felt was the opportunity to win and pushed all their chips to the middle of the table at the trade deadline. To continue the poker analogy (Luongo would approve), they were holding a good hand, but they didn’t get a good flop in having to play their cross-state rivals. And then ultimately, they themselves flopped. The ultimate bad beat. The question that remains is: will they have enough capital to buy back in and stay in the game?
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Chris Gear joined Daily Faceoff in January after a 12-year run with the Vancouver Canucks, most recently as the club’s Assistant General Manager and Chief Legal Officer. Before migrating over to the hockey operations department, where his responsibilities included contract negotiations, CBA compliance, assisting with roster and salary cap management and governance for the AHL franchise, Gear was the Canucks’ vice president and general counsel.
Click here to read Gear’s other Daily Faceoff stories.
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