The Panthers have reached a one-year extension with center Tomas Nosek to keep him from unrestricted free agency today, according to Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic. He’ll earn the league minimum $775,000 salary on a one-way deal.
The cap-strapped Cats will likely sign a few similar deals today as they aim to assemble as complete a roster as possible. Retaining Nosek is a fine first step, bringing them to 18 players on their projected active roster, although the next deal they sign will put them over the cap for now. They have just $500,000 in space following his signing, per PuckPedia, but teams can exceed the cap by up to 10% during the offseason.
Nosek, 32, returns for his second season in Florida after inking a one-year, league-minimum pact in free agency last summer. Calling him a regular may be a stretch – he was often in the lineup for long stretches before sitting for weeks at a time. He appeared in 59 regular-season games, contributing a goal and nine points while averaging 9:49 per game. He was valuable in the faceoff dot (51.8%) and had a plus-four rating, so his non-offensive impacts were strong, but that was his worst production on a per-game basis since emerging as a full-time NHLer with the Golden Knights in 2017-18.
In the playoffs, Nosek was a healthy scratch for their first-round series against the Lightning but played for the remainder of the postseason after making his debut in Game 3 of the second round against the Maple Leafs. He contributed three assists and a plus-four rating in 16 games, seeing more deployment (11:10 per game) than he did in the regular season.
The Panthers have their top nine forward group filled out – even if they trade a forward to clear cap room, their role will likely be replaced by unsigned RFA Mackie Samoskevich. Nosek will be tasked with playing a more consistent role in the lineup next season, but shouldn’t see much increased responsibility when dressed as their fourth-line center.
I think something is wrong with Puckpedia unless they know something we don’t. Gadjovich and Greer seem to have disappeared from the Panthers page even though their player page still shows them with FLA. Believe they are already over the cap but do at least have full set of forwards.
This is true, and good catch – Greer and Gadjovich are buried in the minors on their page. Assume they will be added back to their projection when cap-corrective moves are made. Just need to scroll down further.
Wonder if Tkachuk starts the season on LTIR
Yeah seems like something is up as even if they were to move ERod I think they’d still be over with the additional signings they have