While Aaron Ekblad and the Florida Panthers are in the midst of their second consecutive Stanley Cup run, the star defenseman isn’t shying away from thinking about his future with the franchise.
According to Michael Russo of The Athletic, the pending unrestricted free agent has expressed strong interest in resigning with the Panthers.
“I live and breathe for the Florida Panthers. I bleed for the Florida Panthers. I’ve given my body and everything to this team, and I want to keep doing it… forever, for as long as they’ll let me come to the rink,” he said.
Ekblad has spent his entire 11-year career in Florida after being selected first overall by the team in the 2014 draft. As an 18-year-old, Ekblad burst onto the scene in his rookie season, posting 12 goals and 29 points on his way to the Calder Memorial Trophy. In the years since, he has established himself among the elite defenders in the league. Through 732 career games, Ekblad has posted 380 points, 793 blocked shots, and 839 hits.
He is second all-time in games played for the franchise (behind teammate Aleksander Barkov), 10th in goals, third in assists, fifth in points, third in plus/minus rating, third in shots on goal, and first in defensive point shares.
While Ekblad is coming off of an odd season that included injuries and a 20-game suspension for testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance (that he said he unknowingly took while recovering from his injuries), Ekblad still posted 33 points in 56 games.
With a projected $19 million in cap space (per PuckPedia), the Panthers should have the flexibility to bring their alternate captain back into the fold. However, they must also address the futures of several other key pending free agents, including Brad Marchand, Sam Bennett, and Tomas Nosek. Ekblad’s expiring eight-year contract carried a $7.5 million AAV.
Assuming the Panthers are able keep Bennett around, Ekblad will have to take quite a salary cut to stay in town.
Ekblad will come back at a slightly smaller cap hit, Marchand is gone, they’ll re-sign Nosek and Bennett, and I suspect they’ll trade for someone like Kreider with retention and he’ll probably put up 50-60 points again. This team is embarrassingly deep, practically running two second lines and two second pairings.
LOL! You’re fantasizing quite a bit there.
Florida only has $19M in cap space. Bennett’s market value is projected around $9M alone (yes, it’s inflated but the market will be this year). Plus, Bennett’s agent is notoriously known for wanting his clients to test the open market. According to reports, Florida isn’t willing to pay Bennett that high end price. In all likelihood, Bennett is gone after this season from all indications.
Ekblad is projected around what he is right now which is around $7M. He’ll probably stay in Florida especially if Bennett heads out.
Truth is they can’t keep both unless both take significant pay cuts which isn’t happening.
LOL! So tell me, why would they be unable to move other salary on the team in order to accomplish large moves? It’s not like teams do this literally every off-season.
Must be exhausting being a contrarian all the time.
Disagreeing with you makes one a contrarian? Using your amusing logic, does that not make you a contrarian for disagreeing with Thunder?
@feel the teardrops is a contrarian all the time when it comes to the Panthers
@KL – First off, they made a reported offer to Bennett during the season (which was around $7M AAV give or take) & he declined it. Secondly, management isn’t willing to pay Bennett top market value (I don’t blame them). This has nothing to do about making moves. It’s about management not wanting to break the bank on a player who’s contract will age poorly in a few years.
I’m being contrarian lol?…If we’re being technical, it’s you being the contrarian in the matter but I guess ignorance is bliss since you’re playing fantasy management (& that’s definitely what you’re playing) with some rather misguided & dream-like thinking. You believe what you want but reality is going to disappoint you lol.
Well that’s a no brainer that they all want to play for Florida because they’re a great team. But in a salary cap league you can’t really keep a great team together for a long time. People want to get paid what they’re worth and somebody will have to go for a cheaper model. It happened to the Hawks, It happened to the Wings, And it’ll keep happening no matter how much the cap rises. Basketball tried to manage the problem with Bird rights but it didn’t work either, It turned into a disaster. At some point to get your max dollar you have get people bidding for you, That’s where you get overpaid.
Why is it an overpay if there is open bidding?
It always seemed imho he would be, like Barkov, a panther-lifer. We’ll see about Bennett. Most people thought Reinhart was gone last yr. He took less than market value & here he is back in Finals.
Let him walk. Always takes crappy penalties and will not be worth the money that he can get somewhere else. We now have Seth Jones to step up to the top pairing, and this was done with the intention of letting him walk.
Who will they get to replace him?
Not into th mind of Bill Zito. But if Ekblad leaves then it will be someone’s player who has not or is no longer playing to their potential in their present place. He will come to the Panthers and be rejuvenated. That has been the magic of Zito.
This is one of the reasons why they picked up Seth Jones, and they’re paying him good money to be on the top pairing