Is it time Spencer Knight starts for the Florida Panthers?

The Florida Panthers are rumored to be aggressively shopping Sergei Bobrovsky this offseason. If general manager Bill Zito is successful in doing so, 21-year-old Spencer Knight would be thrust into the starting role.

Florida only has $3-plus million of cap space this offseason and trading some of Bobrovsky’s $10 million cap hit will alleviate its cap problem.

Bobrovsky’s bounce-back campaign made his contract look a lot more tolerable for some teams, but the Panthers would still have to retain a decent chunk of it to make it worth it.

Coupling the amount of money Florida would have to retain — close to 50 percent of the $10 million cap hit, if not the maximum full half — with likely extensions for Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar looming in the near future, the likely solution boils down to handing the full-time starter’s crease to Spencer Knight.

But is he ready?