The Florida Panthers have been one of the most disappointing teams in the NHL the last few seasons. After collecting plenty of high-end talent including Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Aaron Ekblad and even now Sergei Bobrovsky, the team has been trending in the wrong direction. The last time they made the playoffs was in 2016 and they still haven’t won a single series since their 1996 Stanley Cup Final cinderella run.
Recently, they decided to make a move in the front office, relieving Dale Tallon of his duties and beginning a search for a new general manager. Names like Scott Mellanby, Laurence Gilman, and Ron Hextall have all been involved, but a few more candidates have emerged in recent days. On Hockey Night in Canada this weekend, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported that Bill Armstrong, assistant GM of the St. Louis Blues, has been interviewed, along with NHL Network analyst and former NHL goaltender Kevin Weekes. Today, Craig Morgan of AZ Coyotes Insider adds Sean Burke to the list of interviewees.
The search for the right person to lead the Panthers to glory is obviously a thorough one, but the team does not have a ton of time to complete it. The NHL Draft and free agency will begin just a few days after the league awards a Stanley Cup at the beginning of October, meaning whoever takes over the job has less than two months of preparation if hired today.
With the 12th selection this season, the Panthers are a team to watch at the draft if the new GM decides to make a splash. They selected goaltending prospect Spencer Knight with the 13th pick a year ago and already have several other high-end prospects in the system. Evgeni Dadonov, Erik Haula and Mike Hoffman’s expiring contracts will give the newcomer plenty of cap space to work with, though they obviously may want to retain the services of at least one of those forwards.
The biggest question may come on defense, where the Panthers have nearly $25MM already committed to next season but struggled mightily in their own end. Michael Matheson carries a $4.875MM cap hit through the 2025-26 season but was made a healthy scratch again in the qualification round and is obviously a big question mark for next year.
At any rate, the next GM of the Panthers has a lot of work to do this offseason to vault them back to Eastern Conference contenders.
on the topic of Haula, i think he’s a superb buy-low candidate in a flat cap year.
Good scouting. He was very good in Vegas. No reason he can’t be a solid top 9 forward.
I wanted the Pens to get him to replace Bonino back when Vegas was trading off some of their expansion draft excess.
If we didn’t need more right shots so badly, I’d want them to kick tires on him now.
Haula was good for us in Raleigh, but he and Brindy butted heads. He’s a perfect 3 line winger who will grind and is very good in the open ice, but he does have an injury history.
Kevin Weekes? Great analyst.
The last time someone randomly hired a former Islander backup goalie with no experience to be the GM, it was pretty ugly.