George Richards, FHN Publisher
MacKenzie Weegar is one of the great draft finds in the history of the Florida Panthers.
Although players such as Sasha Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau and Aaron Ekblad are the core stars of the organization, all were top three picks of their respective draft classes.
Weegar was not.
Not even close.
Weegar has evolved into a top defenseman in the National Hockey League despite his low draft status — Florida traded back into the 2013 draft to take him in the seventh round — and has become one of the team’s top players.
Paired with Ekblad (the top overall pick in 2014), Weegar has become a player of high regard both within the Panthers and throughout the league.
And, soon, he will be paid commensurate with his accomplishments and standing among his peers.
Will the big checks coming to Weegar in the near future be signed by the Panthers or someone else?
Weegar, 28, has one more year left on the three-year, $9.75 million contract extension he agreed to in the early days of Bill Zito’s regime in Florida.
He took the Panthers to arbitration three tomes as a restricted free agent.
Twice, including in 2020, avoided it as the two sides agreed to a new deal.
At three years and an average of $3.25 million, it was a good deal for Weegar at the time — but it looked like a steal for the Panthers even then.
It has only looked better as time has gone on.
“I have been with the organization for eight years now so this is home for me,” Weegar told FHN a few weeks before signing his deal with the Panthers in 2020.
“I don’t know what it would feel like if I had to leave Florida and I don’t want to find out. I want to remain a Florida Panther as long as I possibly can and I tell that to everyone.
“I truly do love it here, I love the team and we have a bright future.”
Decisions will soon have to be made in regards to Weegar and his future in South Florida.
While Zito has said he would like to get extensions done with both Weegar and Jonathan Huberdeau — who also enters the final year of his contract — the Panthers likely cannot do both.
The team is currently just $4 million under the 2022-23 salary cap and while extensions for either player will not affect his coming season’s numbers, the Panthers are running out of room moving forward.
With the NHL salary cap only expected to grow at a $1 million pace for the next few seasons, the Panthers will face a cap crunch.
There is only so much money that can be spent in the near future.
Defensemen, especially ones coming into their prime as with Weegar, are exceptionally valuable in the NHL.
For the past few years, Weegar has been on Florida’s top pairing with Ekblad and took over for him as the team’s top d-man the last two due to injury.
In 2021, he finished eighth in Norris Trophy voting.
Weegar is a top-pair NHL defenseman. Is he elite? No, but the potential is there as he is just now scratching the surface of his play.
Although he made some mistakes in the playoffs — one in Game 2 against the Lightning which was very costly — his entire body of work the past few seasons has been exemplary.
This season, Weegar set career-highs in goals (eight), assists (36), points (44), blocks (156) and hits (179) as his workload grew by over a minute per game (23:22) over last season.
Yes he was credited with 85 giveaways, but he also had 74 takeaways. Both, again, were highest of his career.
Being on the top defensive pairing with Ekblad, or with Gus Forsling when Ekblad was out, means he did not shy away from playing against the best the opposition had to offer.
Weegar’s numbers have not been shielded by a lot of offensive zone starts — although he started less in the defensive zone this year than last — and he played more minutes by any skater on the team.
The bottom line is Weegar will be rewarded handsomely in his next deal.
Ekblad has three years remaining on the eight-year deal that started with the Panthers in 2017 at an average of $7.5 million.
That, according to spotrac.com, ranks tied for 22nd in the league among defensemen.
Weegar is tied for 89th at his position.
When it comes to Weegar’s next contract, he would expect to be in Ekblad’s neighborhood — if not command more on the open market. If he got some power play time, which he has not seen
With extension negotiations already in the talking stages, the Panthers know what Weegar and his representation are looking for financially.
If they think a deal can be worked out, fantastic.
Problem solved.
That, of course, may not be the case.
So, the Panthers could have a decision to make going into this season.
If Florida knows it will not be able to sign Weegar long-term, what does it do?
Would the Panthers go into this season with Weegar knowing it had one more year of its top defensive pairing intact with the reality of losing a high-end defenseman to free agency once the year is up?
Or would the team look to cash in on Weegar’s stock this offseason and bring something back in return?
The best deal, for both sides, is to obviously work something out. Trading Weegar this offseason likely does not help the Panthers in the immediate (although it would clear $3.5 million off the books) unless the team got something it wanted in return.
Draft stock does not mean much to the Panthers right now. This is a team in win-now mode.
Weegar, even if the team knows he would likely be leaving, helps the Panthers today.
Both sides want to continue the relationship beyond this coming season.
Money well may stand in the way of that.
The same scenario plays out when it comes to Huberdeau.
The Panthers should know which deal they’ll be able to get done — and soon — and it will determine the course of this offseason.
Florida Panthers’ Roll Call is a recurring offseason feature at Florida Hockey Now leading into the start of trade and free agent season.