George Richards, FHN Publisher
One of the Panthers’ leading scorers over the past three seasons is gone as forward Evgenii Dadonov signed a three-year deal with the Ottawa Senators.
Dadonov, who was second on the team with 25 goals last season, signed for an average of $5 million with the Sens after making $4 million with the Panthers.
With Dadonov off the market, the Panthers have two of their top remaining free agents still out there in Mike Hoffman and Erik Haula.
If Florida was to lose both Dadonov and Hoffman, the team would lose two of its top four scorers (the others being Sasha Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau) over the past two seasons.
“We’re thrilled to have come to an agreement with Evgenii,” Otttawa GM Pierre Dorion said.
“He’s an elite offensive talent and a very consistent scorer as demonstrated by his point totals over the last three seasons. This is a key signing for us as it adds a player who will help us produce offensively and one with a proven track record on the power-play.”
As reasonable a contract Dadonov signed — it is a good value for the Sens and would have been for the Panthers as well — perhaps Florida GM Bill Zito is simply running out of money.
Per Puckpedia.com, the Panthers are around $12 million under the NHL salary cap.
Although that sounds like a decent chunk of change, that does not account for players currently unsigned or not currently on the NHL roster.
With defenseman MacKenzie Weegar likely to get something north of $3 million per season as well as the contracts for Aleksi Saarela (estimated $1.5 million) and rookies Owen Tippett ($1 million) and Grigori Denisenko ($1 million), the Panthers are likely more realistically closer to $5 million under the cap.
Dadonov was originally a third-round draft pick by the Panthers in 2007 and spent parts of three seasons with Florida before being traded to Carolina in 2012.
Dadonov never played for the Hurricanes and returned home to Russia to play in the KHL.
His game matured in the KHL and he became one of that league’s most dynamic scorers leading Florida GM Dale Tallon (who originally traded him to Carolina) to bring him back as a free agent in 2017.
Over the course of the next three seasons, Dadonov mostly played on Florida’s top line with Barkov and Huberdeau as well as played on the top power play unit.
In three seasons, Dadonov scored 81 goals with 182 points in 225 games.
In 280 NHL games (all with the Panthers), he has 91 goals and 202 points.