George Richards, FHN Publisher
Those expecting a ton of news to come out of Sunrise when the opening of the free agent market Friday opens at noon may be in for some slight disappointment.
It is said patience is a virtue, and for the Panthers, it could just be good business sense.
New Florida GM Bill Zito has already shown he is not afraid to wheel-and-deal, making three trades (not counting swapping some draft picks) since taking over at 1 Panther Parkway on Sept. 2.
Yet no one knows what the market will look like in this most uncertain NHL offseason.
We do know there are going to be some big names available. That has not changed from one year to the next.
The big difference will be the money being thrown around.
No one, Zito and the Panthers included, want to open up spending big when you don’t necessarily have to.
A number of teams unexpectedly found themselves up against the cap when the number remained flat because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, the NHL will have the same $81.5 million salary cap it did last season. And it’ll be the same next year, too.
Teams have been hit hard financially due to the league’s shutdown in March.
Yeah, the NHL got us through the summer and handed out the Stanley Cup (congrats, Lightning!) but individual teams are hurting.
There have been no fans in the stands since March and no one knows when they’re coming back.
Revenues, for the most part, have stopped and teams are hemorrhaging money.
That is bad news for individual teams and really bad news for players hitting the open market.
Sure, there are a good number of players who are going to get theirs.
Some teams are going to spend regardless of what is going on outside their arena doors for the chance to improve their on-ice stock.
Hey, the Panthers may even be one of them.
Florida is said to have interest in two of the biggest free agents out there, defensemen Alex Pietrangelo and Torey Krug.
One thing that appears for sure is there will be a glut of talented players out there looking for work. And they may come at a relative bargain.
Here is where the Panthers — and other teams — come in.
As of Thursday night, the Panthers have five unrestricted free agents (not counting the players they didn’t offer qualifying offers to on Wednesday) who can hit the market on Friday.
The Panthers have interest in bringing some of them back (see: Evgenii Dadonov and Mike Hoffman) for sure.
The question is the price and the term. And isn’t it always?
Zito says he is going to see what this market will bear. And then he will react.
Zito does not want to be the guy setting the price for the rest of the league.
“I don’t think anyone knows what the market is going to look like so you kind of have to be careful,” Zito told Florida Hockey Now.
“You want to be aggressive, but maybe not too aggressive. You don’t want to be the guy setting the market and overpay or even grab one guy and then have remorse in ‘man, I could have had the other guy!’
“Right now, who knows? We will just have to see what happens.”
Zito and the Panthers have money to spend.
The Panthers are about $19 million under the cap ceiling per Puckpedia.com following Thursday’s acquisition of defenseman Markus Nutivaara.
Florida has 13 players under contract and signing its tendered RFAs is going to eat into that cap space — especially MacKenzie Weegar.
Assuming the Panthers let all of their free agents walk (or they do the walking), what does Florida need?
Well, center is now a position of big concern.
The Panthers traded Vincent Trocheck to Carolina in February and got centers Erik Haula and Lucas Wallmark back. If they’re gone, the Panthers need to fill their spots.
Options which won’t break the bank include two players who were just bought out and should come cheap: Kyle Turris and Alexander Wennberg.
Both players have struggled of late and may need the proverbial change of scenery/prove it situation. Alex Galchenyuk, as we have mentioned in the past, could also be an option.
Florida wants to upgrade its defense and would have to make some trades to do so.
Getting one of the big guns off the UFA market would mean money would have to leave. We’ll see how that works.
As it stands now, Florida would come back with basically its same d-core minus Mike Matheson and Josh Brown with Nutivaara and a Brady Keeper/Chase Priskie combo jumping in.
What the Panthers will do is anyone’s guess.
Last summer, we knew Florida was going to be one of the big spenders and it was — dropping $105.5 million in contracts on four new players including $70-mil to goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.
Florida doesn’t have the $25 million in added in 2019-20 salaries in a single day like it did last July.
But they still could be players in this thing — it may just not happen on the first day.