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Florida Panthers Buy Out Keith Yandle

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The Florida Panthers are cutting ties with a veteran defenseman, as the team has bought out Keith Yandle. Because Yandle has a no-movement clause, he will not require unconditional waivers, meaning the buyout process can move forward immediately. With two years left on his contract the Panthers will carry a cap penalty of the following:

  • 2021-22: $2,341,667
  • 2022-23: $5,391,667
  • 2023-24: $1,241,667
  • 2024-25: $1,241,667

In actual salary, Yandle will earn just over $1.24MM each year. The move gives the Panthers cap savings of just over $4MM this season as Yandle’s deal carried an average annual value of $6.35MM. That provides them with a good bit of room this year, but it’s a pretty hefty dead cap hit to deal with in 2022-23. GM Bill Zito released a statement:

We would like to extend a sincere thank you to Keith for all that he’s contributed to the Florida Panthers organization and to the South Florida community over the past five seasons. While a decision of this kind is never an easy one to make, we believe that this shift is necessary as we look towards the 2021-22 season and our club’s future.

Yandle, 34, was on the edge of the lineup for the Panthers even though he played in all 56 games this season. There was talk in training camp that he would be scratched to start the year, which would have ended his ironman streak of not missing a game in over a decade. With a buyout, Yandle should be able to continue the streak, which is now sitting at 922 games, the second-longest streak of all time (Doug Jarvis, 964).

If postseason games were counted in that streak, it would have already ended, as Yandle played just three of the Panthers games against the Tampa Bay Lightning this year. Despite still being an effective powerplay quarterback and offense play-driving defenseman, his consistency in the defensive end has obviously not pleased the coaching staff or the front office. They’ll cut ties with him now in order to save a little money this year, but will be paying nearly $5.4MM for Yandle to not play for them in 2022-23.

That’s another veteran defenseman hitting the market after a buyout, following the news out of Minnesota earlier this week. Even though the Panthers didn’t believe he could help them anymore, Yandle should immediately have a market from teams looking for a third-pairing/powerplay option. With 600 points in 1,032 NHL games, there’s certainly no lack of experience in the veteran defenseman.

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet broke the news on Twitter that Yandle would be bought out.

Teams Calling On Chris Driedger

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The Florida Panthers have an interesting asset in Chris Driedger, the relatively unknown goaltender that has outperformed Sergei Bobrovsky for two years running. Because of Bobrovsky’s big contract and Spencer Knight’s emergence, the Panthers don’t really need to retain Driedger, but with just a few weeks until he becomes an unrestricted free agent, time is running out if they want to cash him in.

The 27-year-old netminder is drawing interest, according to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic, who tweets that teams are calling the Panthers about Driedger ahead of free agency. As he notes, however, the expansion draft looms and any acquiring team would need to be able to both sign and protect him if they want to keep him out of Seattle.

Buyer beware, as the former Ottawa Senators prospect still has just 41 games of NHL experience, but perhaps the late-bloomer has really just found a new performance level. As recently as the 2018-19 season he was in the ECHL, posting a .911 save percentage in 11 appearances for the Manchester Monarchs. This year in Florida, he had a .927 in 23 NHL contests.

Overall in his 41 NHL appearances, Driedger has a .926 and has posted a 21-10-4 record. The fact that he’s still young enough to potentially improve has to be enticing to teams (even expansion ones) and his lack of history should keep his price relatively low.

The situation is eerily similar to one that played out in 2017, when the Carolina Hurricanes (then led by Kraken GM Ron Francis) traded a third-round pick for Chicago Blackhawks backup Scott Darling, then signed him to a four-year, $16.6MM contract. At the time, Darling had played in just 75 regular season games and had a .923 save percentage (and was even just a few years removed from ECHL action himself). Of course, he also came with a Stanley Cup ring, as he appeared in five games during the 2015 run.

Darling flamed out during his first season as a starter, posting an .888 save percentage in 43 appearances with Carolina, and was bought out by 2019. There’s no guarantee that Driedger would suffer the same fate, but it certainly should pause some front offices that are drooling over his performance from this season.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Free Agent Focus: Florida Panthers

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Free agency is now just under a month away and many teams are already looking ahead to when it opens up.  There will be several prominent players set to hit the open market in late July while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well.  No one would have expected that one of the most interesting UFA in Florida would be a goalie, but after more struggles from their expensive starter, that’s exactly what has happened.

Key Restricted Free Agents

F Sam Bennett – The Panthers’ big trade deadline addition fit in perfectly after moving to the east coast. Bennett scored more goals and points in 10 games for the Panthers than he did in 38 for the Calgary Flames, and then was once again added his strong postseason performance. The 25-year-old now has 12 goals and 24 points in 35 career playoff games, scoring at a near 30-goal pace despite never totaling more than 18 in a single regular season. One reason for the added point production in Florida? Bennett saw his average ice time increase by nearly five minutes per night as he plugged into the top-six immediately. There’s no doubt he will be looking for a raise on the $2.55MM cap hit he has carried for the last two seasons, but the Panthers are actually in an interesting position. Bennett’s counting stats were so poor in Calgary—he averaged just 25 points over his first five seasons—that his arbitration case wouldn’t be very strong. If Florida wanted to, they could go that route and try to squeeze as much excess value as they can on a short-term deal.

D – Gustav Forsling – Forsling played in 122 games for the Chicago Blackhawks between 2016-2019, recording just 27 points. He averaged just over 17 minutes a game during those years, moving in and out of the lineup as a depth option. Then in 2019-20 he played the entire season in the minor leagues, suiting up 57 times for the Charlotte Checkers. Why is he an important RFA? Because there was a real breakout this season for the 25-year-old defenseman, with 17 points in 43 games and an average TOI of nearly 20 minutes. In fact in the playoffs, Forsling averaged 21:29 in six games against the Tampa Bay Lightning, scoring a goal and two points in the process. With veteran defenders being phased in Florida, there will be a chance for Forsling to establish himself as a core piece over the next few seasons. A multi-year contract could be in order, to provide some security for player and team.

Other RFAs: F Anthony Duclair, F Lucas Wallmark, F Juho Lammikko, F Patrick Bajkov, F Brad Morrisson, D Noah Juulsen, D Jake Massie, D Lucas Carlsson, D Chase Priskie, D Alec Rauhauser, G Sam Montembeault, G Ryan Bednard

Key Unrestricted Free Agents:

F Alexander Wennberg – Speaking of having a career resurrected in Sunrise, Wennberg experienced an explosion in goal scoring in his first year for the Panthers. After racking up just 40 goals in 415 games for the Columbus Blue Jackets, the playmaking center scored 17 times in 56 games this season for Florida. No, his insane 20% shooting percentage won’t continue, but Wennberg and the Panthers were a perfect fit this season. GM Bill Zito obviously knows him very well from their time together in Columbus and an extension seems likely here if a reasonable number can be found. Still just 26, Wennberg’s representatives are surely patting themselves on the back for taking the one-year “rebound” deal in Florida before setting their sights on something longer this time around.

D Brandon Montour – The career shifts continued with Montour, who arrived in Florida through a trade with the Buffalo Sabres and immediately found more success when insulated by better teammates. It’s hard to know what his ceiling is at this point, given how drastically his performance has varied throughout the first few years of his career, but make no mistake there are many characteristics of Montour’s game that will be appealing to NHL teams this summer. He just turned 27, he’s right-handed, and has shown an ability to drive play and contribute to the powerplay in the past. Though he had just four points in 12 games with the Panthers, Montour’s possession numbers rebounded and he looked a lot closer to the player that racked up multiple 30+ point seasons in the past. Unfortunately, some of the downsides appeared again in the playoffs, when Montour was outmatched in his own end and saw his minutes reduced dramatically in several games. Is he a reliable top-four option moving forward? That certainly is still to be seen.

G Chris Driedger – The Panthers had two starting-level goaltenders on their team at the end of this season, and neither one was Sergei Bobrovsky. Driedger just simply outperformed Bobrovsky at every turn, racking up a .927 save percentage in 23 appearances, his second straight year of strong goaltending in backup/tandem role. That’s going to generate a lot of interest on the open market, given the fact that he’s just 27 and still likely won’t command a huge salary after playing the last two years on a two-way deal. There’s no guarantee that Driedger can continue to perform at this level on an increased workload (see: Scott Darling), but with Spencer Knight ready to contribute, it’s going to be near-impossible for the Panthers to bring the free agent goaltender back unless they somehow rid themselves of Bobrovsky’s $10MM cap hit.

Other UFAs: F Nikita Gusev, F Scott Wilson, D Tommy Cross, D Ethan Prow, D Brady Keeper, G Phillippe Desrosiers

Projected Cap Space

The Panthers have a lot of work to do and not that much cap space to do it. The team currently sits at just over $13.1MM of projected space, but if they were to part ways with veteran players like Keith Yandle or Anton Stralman, they could open up some extra room. Perhaps more important to note is the situation for next year, when Aleksander Barkov is scheduled for unrestricted free agency. The Panthers have been benefiting from his extremely undervalued $5.9MM cap hit the last several years but will have to give him a hefty raise to keep him in Florida. The open market awaits Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar just two years from now, meaning there will have to be a full plan in place by Zito and company this summer before they sign any long-term deals.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Expansion Primer: Florida Panthers

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Over the next few weeks, we will be breaking down each team’s situation as it pertains to the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft. Which players are eligible, who will likely warrant protection, and which ones may be on the block to avoid the risk of losing them for nothing? Each team is required to submit their protection lists by 4:00 PM CDT on July 17th. The full eligibility rules can be found here, while CapFriendly has an expansion tool to make your own lists.

One of the mistakes that is brought up most often in regards to the Vegas expansion draft was the one made in Florida, when the Panthers sent Reilly Smith to the Golden Knights to make sure they picked Jonathan Marchessault. That’s right, the Panthers traded away one top-six player just to ensure that they would lose another and provided the Golden Knights with two-thirds of a first line in the process. The idea was to protect players like Alexander Petrovic and Mark Pysyk, certainly not a decision that is looked back on kindly. This time, new GM Bill Zito surely won’t make the same mistake.

Eligible Players (Non-UFA)

Forwards:

Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau (NMC), Patric Hornqvist, Frank Vatrano, Noel Acciari, Carter Verhaeghe, Mason Marchment, Ryan Lomberg, Patrick Bajkov, Aleksi Saarela, Anthony Duclair, Juho Lammikko, Brad Morrison, Lucas Wallmark, Sam Bennett

Defense:

Aaron Ekblad, Keith Yandle (NMC), Anton Stralman, MacKenzie Weegar, Markus Nutivaara, Radko Gudas, Kevin Connauton, Noah Juulsen, Gustav Forsling, Lucas Carlsson

Goalies:

Sergei Bobrovsky (NMC), Sam Montembeault

Notable Unrestricted Free Agents

F Alexander Wennberg, D Brandon Montour, G Chris Driedger

Notable Exemptions

F Anton Lundell, F Grigori Denisenko, F Eetu Luostarinen, F Owen Tippett, F Nikita Gusev (UFA), G Spencer Knight

Key Decisions

Interestingly, the Panthers once again are faced with the decision on whether or not to use the standard seven forwards/three defenseman protection strategy. This time, it’s hard to justify going the eight-skater route, even if Yandle’s no-movement clause is going to force them to expose a valuable player from the blueline. There is just too much talent up front, and there’s no way they risk losing another Marchessault.

Things kick off as expected, with Huberdeau and Barkov leading the way. One has a no-move, but there’s no way either one would ever be exposed to Seattle. Beyond that though, things get a little more complicated. Verhaeghe broke out this season for 18 goals and 36 points in 43 games and will almost certainly earn protection, while trade-deadline acquisition Bennett seemed revitalized after bringing his talents to Sunrise. That’s four spots used up already, with the group of Hornqvist, Vatrano, Marchment, Acciari, and Duclair still to come. At least two of those players are going to be left unprotected, and it’s not at all clear which ones.

Hornqvist is the sort of in-your-face player that the Panthers targeted last summer, trying to add a little more bite to the lineup to compete in the playoffs. He had a good season too, scoring 32 points in 44 games, but is now 34 and costs $5.3MM in each of the next two seasons. He’s exactly the type of situation where a team might not want to lose him, yet wouldn’t be crushed if he were taken, meaning he may well be left unprotected by the Panthers.

Vatrano would have been an easy choice a few seasons ago, but recent acquisitions have dropped him further and further down the lineup. He averaged fewer than 12 minutes a night in the playoffs this season and may be deemed expendable despite scoring 18 goals in the regular season.

Marchment and Acciari are both still depth players, but the former showed an ability to move up and down the lineup while the latter is just a year removed from scoring 20 goals as a depth center. There’s a case for either one, including the fact that Marchment will cost just $800K this season and had a pair of goals in the team’s first-round exit.

Then there is Duclair, who has shown an ability to line up beside star players in the past and has excellent offensive upside. The problem is that he doesn’t have a contract yet as a restricted free agent, and could even be a non-tender candidate if the team doesn’t want to deal with a potential arbitration award. The 25-year-old Duclair also saw his role drop dramatically by the playoffs, where he failed to register a single point while averaging just over 12 minutes a night.

While there is a case to be made for several forwards, the defensive group seems much more straightforward, if only because of Yandle’s no-movement clause. Unless he agrees to waive it, the team will have to protect Ekblad and Weegar as the two integral cogs of their back end. The 27-year-old Weegar may still not be getting the recognition he deserves from some hockey fans, but there’s a reason why he ended up finishing eighth in Norris Trophy voting after an outstanding season. That means the Panthers will be exposing players like Gudas and Nutivaara, while not being able to protect restricted free agent Forsling either, who leapfrogged those veterans this season.

In goal, the Panthers will be forced to protect Bobrovsky, even if they probably would rather just re-sign Driedger and roll him out alongside Knight next season. There’s still five years and $50MM left on Bobrovsky’s deal, which would actually likely scare off Seattle anyway, but there’s really no need to ask him to waive the no-movement clause at this point.

Projected Protection List

F Aleksander Barkov
F Jonathan Huberdeau
F Patric Hornqvist
F Carter Verhaeghe
F Sam Bennett
F Frank Vatrano
F Anthony Duclair

D Aaron Ekblad
D Keith Yandle
D MacKenzie Weegar

G Sergei Bobrovsky

Skater Exposure Requirement Checklist

When Vegas had their expansion draft, a minimum of two forwards and one defenseman had to be exposed that were under contract and played either 40 games in the most recent season or 70 over the past two combined.  Due to the pandemic, those thresholds have been changed to 27 games played in 2020-21 or 54 in 2019/20 and 2020-21 combined.  In creating our expansion list for each team in this series, we will ensure that these criteria are met.

Forwards (3): Noel Acciari, Mason Marchment, Ryan Lomberg
Defensemen (3): Anton Stralman, Markus Nutivaara, Radko Gudas

The Panthers have more flexibility than most when it comes to the exposure requirements, with so many players under contract for next season. Even if Acciari or Marchment are protected, names like Hornqvist or Vatrano would also meet the requirements upfront. On the back end, even if they can convince Yandle to waive his no-move, the last protection slot would likely be used on Forsling, who doesn’t qualify for the requirement anyway. Basically, these shouldn’t be an issue for Florida no matter what they decide to do.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Florida Panthers Hire Tuomo Ruutu

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Despite being mentioned explicitly in their recent hockey operations hirings, Tuomo Ruutu will not return to the New York Rangers. Instead, he’ll be joining the Florida Panthers as an assistant coach, his first opportunity behind an NHL bench. Panthers’ GM Bill Zito released a statement on the hire:

We are proud to welcome Tuomo to the Panthers and receive him as an addition to Joel’s coaching staff. With his career in hockey spanning multiple decades, we believe his experience both as a player and working in player development in the NHL and internationally will be an invaluable addition to our organization as we prepare for an exciting 2021-22 campaign.

Importantly, and pointed out in the Panthers’ release, Ruutu also has a connection to top prospect Anton Lundell from their time together at the World Juniors. Ruutu has been an assistant on the U20 team each of the last three years, including at this most recent tournament when Lundell served as captain. That connection, along with his long history of success for Finland as a player, should only help Ruutu make an immediate impact on the Panthers next season.

It’s not just his international play that was successful though, as Ruutu was a pretty impactful forward in the NHL as well. He started his career with the Chicago Blackhawks after being selected ninth overall and finished sixth in Calder Trophy voting. Coincidentally, he was moved out of Chicago just before Joel Quenneville, his new boss in Florida, came in. In the 2010-11 season, Ruutu set a career-high in scoring with 57 points. He’ll now have to use some of that experience to connect with the young players in Florida.

League Notes: Realignment, Canceled Events, ESPN

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Though the NHL approved the plan all the way back in December 2018, not long after accepting Seattle’s expansion bid, it has been a long time since realignment plans have been reiterated. In fact, since the last update on the league’s post-expansion structure, there was a complete overhaul of the league’s conferences and divisions for the 2020-21 season. However, everything will return to normal next year with the unchanged Atlantic and Metropolitan Divisions making up the Eastern Conference and finally an equal 16 teams in the Western Conference with the Central and Pacific Divisions. Commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed today that the plan remains for the only team to move to be the Arizona Coyotes. Although Phoenix is more closely located to four Pacific cities than any Central cities, it is also closer to those Central cities than any other Pacific city, including newcomer Seattle. The Coyotes may be the odd man out, but a change of scenery can’t hurt for a team that has struggled to make the playoffs out of the Pacific for the better part of a decade.

  • When the NHL announced a number of events for the 2021-22 season earlier today, there were a couple of curious absences. The league revealed a Stadium Series game in Nashville and that All-Star Weekend will belong to Vegas, thereby skipping over the hosts for those canceled 2020-21 events. The Carolina Hurricanes were set to host an outdoor game this year, but now have no such event planned. However, Bettman did specifically mention that Raleigh will get it’s Stadium Series (or perhaps Winter Classic) game in the near future. There is not as much clarity for the Florida Panthers. The 2021 All-Star Game was supposed to take place in Sunrise, but now it will be on the other side of the country and there has been no explanation by the league as to why nor as to future plans for the Panthers to host. George Richards of Florida Hockey Now surmises that the potential for the All-Star Game to lead into the Olympic break, if the NHL attends, made a move west, where flights to China would be far shorter than from Florida, a sensible move. However, he also notes that Florida team president Matt Caldwell was certain the All-Star game would belong to the Panthers, so there is some confusion. In all likelihood, Florida will play host to the All-Star game in the near future, just as Carolina will host an outdoor game, but until there is an official announcement that is only speculation.
  • Another surprise reveal this evening is that NBC’s contract with the NHL will officially come to an end following the Stanley Cup Final. The network was expected to host the NHL Entry Draft, if not also the NHL Expansion Draft, later this month. However, ESPN has now been announced as the host of both. TSN’s Bob McKenzie, an NBC contributor, notes that this has less to do with the new television rights agreement and more to do with unfortunate timing. McKenzie believes that NBC informed the NHL well before the new TV deal that they would be unable to host the Entry Draft due to conflicts with the Summer Olympics. As a result, ESPN will begin its NHL coverage with two major events in the span of just three days – the Expansion Draft on Wednesday, July 21 and the first round of the Entry Draft on Friday, July 23. Although, McKenzie believes they will use the Sportsnet feed for the latter, if not both. With Mark Messier and most recently Chris Chelios joining ESPN, the network will have more than enough talent to start producing their own material sooner rather than later.

Seattle Kraken Announce AHL Partnership For 2021-22

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The Seattle Kraken will have an AHL team all to their own, but it won’t happen until 2022-23. That’s when the Palm Springs AHL franchise is set to start play, meaning the Kraken needed to find a partnership for the upcoming season. That agreement has now been announced with the Charlotte Checkers, the primary affiliate of the Florida Panthers. The Checkers will serve as the development stop for both Kraken and Panthers prospects next season.

Rick Olczyk, the Kraken assistant general manager, explained that his team will supply between eight and 12 players to the Checkers, including one goaltender. Those players will come from the initial expansion draft as well as free agent or trade acquisitions. Most of the players selected in the upcoming entry draft will not be eligible for AHL action, provided their respective leagues get underway as planned.

This was an obvious connection, given Kraken GM Ron Francis’ history with the Checkers during his time with the Carolina Hurricanes. For years, the Checkers were the AHL affiliate for Carolina, and Charlotte CEO Michael Kahn expressed his excitement about this new agreement:

We are excited to work with Ron Francis again as we help develop the inaugural group of Seattle Kraken prospects. We feel the partnership between ourselves, the Kraken and our primary affiliate, the Florida Panthers, will give the Checkers a strong pool of players for the upcoming season.

This is the same setup that the Vegas Golden Knights went through in their first year, before buying and relocating an AHL franchise to Henderson. Expansion teams do not have long enough depth charts to really fill out an AHL roster in the first year, meaning a development partnership like this is more than enough. Obviously, once Palm Springs is up and running it will be more beneficial to have their prospects and depth options closer to Seattle, but for now, those names will be playing on the other side of the country in Charlotte.

Offseason Checklist: Florida Panthers

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The offseason is in full flight with only two teams still standing.  We continue our series which examines what those eliminated teams need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Florida.

Expectations were relatively low for Florida heading into the season.  While GM Bill Zito made some changes, they weren’t expected to be a team that was going to contend.  However, they wound up being one point out of the Central Division lead and were only three away from tying for the league lead.  While they were ousted in the opening round by Tampa Bay, they’re still entering the summer with some momentum.  Here’s a look at what Zito should be trying to accomplish over the coming months.

Clear Out A Contract

At the end of their series against the Lightning, two of Florida’s three highest-paid players – goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and defenseman Keith Yandle – weren’t even in uniform.  Anton Stralman, who is sixth on that list, cleared waivers during the season and had more of a limited role than usual.  That’s nearly $22MM on their books (about 30% of their payroll) either sitting on the bench or not living up to expectations.  On a team that isn’t spending to the Upper Limit already, that’s not ideal.

Bobrovsky’s $10MM AAV for the next five years is going to be difficult to move but if they’re willing to retain a sizable chunk, perhaps there’s a move to be made.  Chris Driedger is a pending UFA that they would like to keep around but as long as Bobrovsky and top prospect Spencer Knight are there, there will be better opportunities for him elsewhere.  Dealing Bobrovsky away, even at a loss in terms of taking back a contract and retaining some money, could allow them to try to keep Driedger around.

Yandle’s ironman streak remains intact at 922 games as playoff contests don’t count.  He sits 42 behind Doug Jarvis for the all-time record but that would appear to be in some jeopardy given that he wasn’t in the lineup when it mattered the most.  Both sides looked at the possibility of a change of scenery back in training camp when it looked like he’d be on the outside looking in and it may be time to revisit that.  With two years left at $6.35MM, it’s another negative-value contract but Yandle certainly can still contribute offensively as long as he’s sheltered in a lower role on the depth chart.  It’d be a swap of bad contracts but it might still be worth doing.

As for Stralman, he only has one year left at $5.5MM and he can still play in a limited role so he is probably the easiest to move of the three, relatively speaking.  A trade with max retention would be preferable to a buyout (which would cost $2.5MM in 2021-22 and $1.5MM in 2022-23) and could potentially still free up some money in the process.

As a budget team, there are already restrictions in place.  Those can’t be compounded by deadweight contracts.  It won’t be easy for Zito to accomplish but they can’t have that much money tied up in negative-value deals if they want to take a step forward.

Barkov Extension Talks

This is the biggest item on their to-do list.  Captain Aleksander Barkov is about to enter the final year of his six-year, $35.4MM contract, a deal that has been among the most team-friendly pacts around the league in recent years.  When second-line centers are getting that type of money, getting one of the best all-around pivots in the league at that price tag is quite the bargain.

That will soon change, however.  The 25-year-old is set to hit the open market next summer in the prime of his career and with it, his price tag is going to shoot up considerably.  Forget the flat salary cap and how it knocked down a lot of the UFA market back in the fall.  The top players still got paid pretty much top dollar and Barkov is very much a top player.  It’s rare that players like him actually make it to free agency so there will undoubtedly be a bidding war if he gets there.  He knows it and so does Zito.

As a result, expect Florida to put their best foot forward in the coming months to lock up their franchise player to a max-term deal at a price tag that will almost certainly hit eight figures.  We know cap space won’t be an issue since they’re not particularly close to the Upper Limit anyway but this is the type of player they need to break their budget to keep around.

The lingering question will be what do they do if they can’t agree on a contract or Barkov indicates that he’s not willing to sign, similar to what Seth Jones has done in Columbus.  It’s a scenario they certainly won’t want to think about but if it happens, Zito will have to react quickly to decide whether they should trade Barkov now or hope he changes his mind in-season.  But first things first.  Before even pondering that scenario, they’ll be extending a significant extension offer to try to keep the Selke winner around.

Add Defensive Help

The back end has been an area of concern for Florida for a while and that was highlighted even more this season.  Aaron Ekblad’s season-ending leg fracture was a huge blow down the stretch and the fact that Yandle and Stralman underachieved considerably certainly didn’t help either.  MacKenzie Weegar had a breakout year and Gustav Forsling logged nearly 20 minutes a game as a waiver claim but that was about it for positives.

The Panthers are in a spot where they could conceivably add two or three defenders this summer and it wouldn’t feel like overkill.  Deadline acquisition Brandon Montour, a pending unrestricted free agent, will need to be re-signed or replaced and at a minimum, adding a top-four piece would go a long way.

Florida landed the top player in college free agency in Matt Kiersted and he looked okay down the stretch but he’s not ready for full-time NHL duty yet; he’ll need some time in the minors.  There aren’t any other prospects that are ready to step into a regular role either so the improvement will need to come from outside the organization.

Re-Sign RFAs

Florida has a pair of intriguing restricted free agents on their roster.  Winger Anthony Duclair was a surprising non-tender by Ottawa last fall and had to wait nearly two months to land with Florida.  His qualifying offer of $1.65MM is certainly reasonable with the year he had but as was the case last October, arbitration eligibility looms large.  Back in the fall, the threshold to walk away from an award was $4,538,958 and while Duclair had a good season with 10 goals and 22 assists in 43 games, he shouldn’t come in that high.  Do they want to risk him being awarded something they’re not willing to pay and can’t walk away from?  With that uncertainty, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Zito push to try to get something done over the next month before the tender deadline hits.

The other interesting one is Sam Bennett.  With Calgary, it looked like the 25-year-old could be non-tendered over receiving a $2.55MM qualifying offer as he was unhappy and struggling.  Then came a deadline day deal to Florida and he absolutely took off, notching 15 points in 10 regular season games plus five more in five playoff contests.  That’s certainly a small sample size and it will make Bennett’s next contract a little tricky.  Was this a short-term blip or a sign of things to come now that he’s being deployed in a better situation?  Are the two sides sure enough of each other to do a long-term agreement or would a one-year contract make more sense?  At a minimum, he’s a safe bet to be qualified which wasn’t the case just a few months ago.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Coaching Notes: Vincent, Hakstol, Boudreau, Tocchet

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New Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Brad Larsen is adding to his staff. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the Blue Jackets are set to hire Manitoba Moose head coach Pascal Vincent as an assistant to Larsen. Vincent had previously left Paul Maurice’s Winnipeg Jets staff in favor of being the head coach for their AHL affiliate, but seemingly is back to being open to an NHL assistant role. Vincent has spent the past decade with the Jets organization and the previous dozen years as a head coach and GM in the QMJHL. With an impressive resume, Vincent may see this Columbus opportunity as a way to get his name out there beyond the confines of Winnipeg in hopes of attracting NHL head coach attention of his own down the road. Vincent will re-unite with Jack Roslovic in Columbus; he previously coached him as a prospect with the Moose but he has now become the No. 1 center for the Blue Jackets. That relationship should be mutually beneficial for the pair.

  • The big coaching news of the day was of course the hiring of Dave Hakstol as the first head coach of the expansion Seattle Kraken. And while Hakstol’s role will be in the locker room and not the front office, GM Ron Francis will certainly take his opinions into consideration. After all, it was the Florida Panthers, the former team of Vegas’ inaugural head coach, Gerard Gallant, that were swindled the worst by the Golden Knights in the last Expansion Draft. Florida traded Reilly Smith and a fourth-round pick so that Vegas would select Jonathan Marchessault over the likes of Alexander Petrovic and Mark Pysyk. While no teams should be fooled so badly this time around, Hakstol’s knowledge of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Philadephia Flyers – not to mention the numerous University of North Dakota alumni around the league – could come into play. The Flyers in particular are expected to have many well-known names exposed in the draft, some of whom played their best seasons under Hakstol, and the coach may know exactly how to target the team.
  • The Maple Leafs now have a vacancy on their coaching staff in the wake of Hakstol’s departure, but the club’s fans think they have already figured it out. Yahoo’s Thomas Williams writes that there has already been an outpouring of support for veteran coach Bruce Boudreau to be hired as the team’s newest assistant. The Toronto native and former Maple Leafs player spoke out this off-season as a free agent that he would like to coach his hometown team and fans seem to agree with the match. Boudreau has had a long and successful coaching career and some feel that head coach Sheldon Keefe could use the veteran support on the bench. With that said, Boudreau has never served as an assistant in the NHL and interviewed for the Buffalo Sabres’ head coach vacancy late last month. Despite any personal feelings and fan support, Boudreau will take the top job for the struggling Sabres over a No. 2 role for Toronto.
  • Of course, Boudreau is not the only candidate for the Sabres’ job, as Rick Tocchet is also among the names who interviewed for the position. Tocchet interviewed multiple times with the Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers, and Seattle Kraken, only to lose out on all three jobs. He has reportedly only interviewed once with Buffalo, who may not have been his top choice at first, but they are the only landing spot left, as the other remaining NHL head coach position is the post he vacated with the Arizona Coyotes. Tocchet is clearly a well-regarded and sought-after coach, so now that they are his last hope at a top job this season, perhaps the Sabres and Tocchet will get serious about a potential match.

Lucas Wallmark Signs In KHL

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The Florida Panthers won’t be bringing back trade deadline acquisition Lucas Wallmark, at least not next season. The restricted free agent forward has signed a one-year deal in the KHL with CSKA Moscow, ending his NHL career for the time being.

Wallmark, 25, was half of the return the Panthers received from the Chicago Blackhawks for Brett Connolly, Henrik Borgstrom, and Riley Stillman. The team used him just four times down the stretch and didn’t dress him in the playoffs, meaning they’ll receive very little in the trade. His rights can be retained with a qualifying offer, but it’s not clear whether he’ll actually be back in time for them to actually receive any benefit from that. Wallmark will become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2022, regardless of where he spends the next two seasons.

It was an interesting move at the time, given how little the Panthers seemed to value Wallmark the first time they acquired him in 2020. Part of the deal that saw Vincent Trocheck head to Carolina, Wallmark played seven games for the Panthers that season, played twice in the bubble qualification round, and then was left without a qualifying offer. He became an unrestricted free agent, signed a one-year deal with the Blackhawks, and ended up back in Florida by the end of the year. It’s not really like anything changed during that time; in fact, Wallmark failed to score even a single goal in his 16 games with Chicago.

The fact that he has signed a deal in the KHL this early could suggest that he already knows the Panthers were going to leave him unqualified once again. While this could change that decision, it doesn’t appear as though he has much of a future in Florida. In 187 regular season games, Wallmark has 23 goals and 59 points.

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