George Richards, FHN Publisher
This offseason was decidedly different for the Florida Panthers than the one which preceded it.
Both, of course, included a Stanley Cup championship parade as well as days — and weeks — of partying with that big silver mug.
Yet, the two were completely different.
Timing was a big part of it.
In 2024, the Panthers had less than a week from when they beat the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final to when free agency opened.
General manager Bill Zito also had to fly to Las Vegas for the NHL Draft during that week.
Florida, up against the salary cap, was unable to keep a couple of players it really would have liked to have kept.
Save for one player, that was not the case this offseason.
Defenseman Brandon Montour, not long after celebrating the Cup championship with his soon-to-be former teammates in Lauderdale, signed the biggest contract of his life: Seven years for $50 million with the Seattle Kraken.
The Panthers simply could not have matched that regardless of how much time went between Game 7 and free agency.
Heartbeat forward Ryan Lomberg also became a former Panther a week after winning the Stanley Cup. Lomberg got two years and $4 million to return to Calgary — the franchise in which his career got started.
Florida may have been able to go a high as $1 million for one season but Lomberg, with a growing family, could not turn down the kind of money the Flames (and likely others) were offering.
Same goes for Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Kevin Stenlund, and Anthony Stolarz, players who parlayed their one season in the tropics into nice deals with Toronto.
Ekman-Larsson had the final four years of the $29 million he was owed on his previous deal bought out by Vancouver. It remains the largest buyout in NHL history.
Still, a healthy OEL roared back to life with the Panthers and became one of the team’s top defenders and signed for four years and $14 million with the Maple Leafs.
Stolarz also got healthy with the Panthers and had a career year backing up Sergei Bobrovsky.
He got $5 million over two years with the Leafs.
As was the case with Lomberg, the cap-challenged Panthers could only go so high when it came to paying their fourth line.
Lomberg and Steven Lorentz were out, Vladimir Tarasenko took a real nice deal (two years, $9 million) with Detroit, and Stenlund — Florida’s penalty killing specialist — landed in Utah for two years and $4 million.
The Panthers had a lot of holes to fill and, although Zito’s attentions may have been elsewhere, Florida filled them pretty quickly.
To replace much of their fourth line (Kyle Okposo retired but Jonah Gadjovich was previous extended), the Panthers quickly signed AJ Greer from Calgary, Tomas Nosek from New Jersey, and Jesper Boqvist from Boston all for about $2.3 million.
Total.
Florida, which did sign Sam Reinhart for eight years and $69 million before free agency started, later added Jesper’s younger brother Adam Boqvist after he was bought out by Columbus but he ended up on waivers where he landed on Long Island.
Even though the Panthers were able to add at the trade deadline — Seth Jones, Brad Marchand most notably — with Matthew Tkachuk on LTIR, that fourth line of Nosek centering Greer and Gadjovich helped the Panthers win the Stanley Cup.
Again, for about what it would have cost to keep Lomberg.
So, that was last offseason.
What happened in this one?
Even though the Panthers were again up against the salary cap, Zito was able to work some magic and retain the team’s top three pending free agents in Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad, and Marchand.
The expectation that Tkachuk will start this coming season on LTIR once he has surgery to repair his sports hernia and/or abductor pull allowed Zito and the Panthers to go over the salary cap — PuckPedia has the Panthers $3.725 over right now — to pretty much keep the band together.
Of course, not everyone got to stick around in the sunshine.
Defenseman Nate Schmidt had a terrific season after being bought out by Winnipeg and was one of the team’s top players in the playoffs.
Still, the Panthers simply could not come close to the three years and $9 million he got from Utah. Deadline acquisitions Nico Sturm and Vitek Vanacek also moved on to new teams.
The Panthers did not replace Sturm, but brought in veteran defenseman Jeff Petry at the league minimum to take Schmidt’s spot on the third pairing with Dmitry Kulikov; Florida traded with Columbus to get Daniil Tarasov to backup Sergei Bobrovsky.
As it turns out, Florida’s free agency day was pretty quiet.
But that’s only because the days leading up to them were pretty chaotic.
Bennett, one of the biggest fish in the free agency sea, made it clear he wanted to stay right where he was as the Panthers celebrated their second Cup championship throughout South Florida.
He did get the eight-year contract he wanted, becoming one of the top-paid Panthers in the process at $8 million per.
“It’s amazing. We really have the chance to truly make this team a dynasty, and I’m really just grateful that I get the chance to be a part of it,’’ Bennett said.
“There’s so many pieces in this puzzle that create this team and the success that this team has, and just to be a small piece of that is an honor. Looking forward to growing this legacy for the next eight years, for sure.’’
With Bennett in the fold, negotiations turned toward Ekblad and Marchand.
Ekblad likely could have gotten $9 million per season from a number of teams, but staying with the Panthers was his main objective.
He ended up taking $6 million per season — but got the NHL max of eight years.
“At the end of the day, it’s negotiations and things can go one way or the other pretty quickly,’’ Ekblad said. “I’m really happy and proud that things got done, but it was an extremely stressful few days.
“Both sides are playing hard ball at different times, and sometimes you feel like you’re getting further apart or closer together, but ultimately we came to a deal and it was the right deal and a good deal for both sides. I feel it’s fair, and I feel respected, and really happy that we were able to get it done.
“A huge weight lifted off my shoulders that I was carrying all year.”
How close did he come to leaving?
“It was always Florida,’’ Ekblad said. “I don’t think you guys understand: Florida is home.”
Then came Marchand.
There were rumblings that Marchand would not take a ‘new’ hometown discount to stay with the Panthers and could sign with Toronto, or even return to the Bruins where he spent two seasons as captain.
The Panthers ended up spreading out Marchand’s cap hit over six years ($31.5 million) and he completed the free agency trifecta before it even started.
Zito, for one, refused to take credit for pulling things together.
He pointed to a reporter, saying “you could have done this.’’
OK.
“This is 100 percent those guys wanting to be part of something they created,’’ Zito said.
“We kind of wax poetic about the team and the community that they’ve become. I think this is a great example of what it means to them. It’s 100 percent those men who made the decision that they all wanted to continue to try to win together.”
And, now, the Panthers will go into this coming season looking a lot like they did coming out of the last one.
When the Panthers raise their second Stanley Cup banner on Oct. 7 against the Blackhawks, there will not be many — Petry and Tarasov could be it — who were not part of the 2025 championship team.
You just do not see that kind of consistent return in a cap world anymore.
The Panthers are also not scared to talk about dynasties, three-peats, or anything else.
Their goal is to keep winning the Stanley Cup.
Twice just is not enough.
“We have won the Stanley Cup twice and we still have a long window to win more,” Ekblad said.
“Whether it is or isn’t next year, it is just as likely the following year. And the year after that, and the year after that. It’s really cool to be in this position.”
More FHN Coverage of the Stanley Cup Champion Panthers:
2024 STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS 2025
FLORIDA PANTHERS
ON DECK