The Florida Panthers May Have Uncovered Some More Gems

It is no secret that the road to back-to-back Stanley Cups for the Florida Panthers was paved with contributions from a number of bargain basement pickups, players who had overstayed their welcome in one place becoming big pieces of a championship team.

Deals for Brad Marchand and Seth Jones aside, the Panthers have received serious contributions at the lower end of the depth chart.

Unquestionably, the work of 2024 acquisitions Nate Schmidt, Tomas Nosek, Jesper Boqvist, and AJ Greer did not go unnoticed.

Jonah Gadjovich was a holdover from the prior season but he certainly fits into this conversation.

When the Panthers signed an injured Gadjovich, they also brought in Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Dmitry Kulikov who both came at very affordable prices after rough seasons in their former locales.

Other short-term acquisitions included Kevin Stenlund, Steven Lorentz, and Anthony Stolarz.

Radko Gudas moved on before the Panthers won the Stanley Cup for the first time, but he too had a rough go of it with the Washington Capitals before joining the Panthers in 2020.

The common thread of those who left is that they earned nice deals elsewhere, contracts the Panthers could not have matched due to cap limits.

This summer, Bill Zito’s challenge was to re-sign stars Aaron Ekblad, Sam Bennett, and Marchand.

After that, he needed to find inexpensive replacements for Schmidt — who was bought out by Winnipeg last summer and turned his fortunes around with the Panthers — as well as late-season acquisitions Nico Sturm and Vitek Vanecek.

Vanecek was acquired as insurance after goaltending heir Spencer Knight went to Chicago in the deal which brought Jones to Florida.

Zito did miracles with cap space to re-up Ekblad, Bennett and Marchand.

How he will parlay this into the next season remains a bit of a public mystery. According to PuckPedia, Florida is almost $3 million over the cap with Mackie Samoskevich still without a new contract.

The Panthers are likely expecting Matthew Tkachuk to have surgery later this summer and start the season on LTIR but since he hasn’t actually had the surgery yet, that is just an assumption on our part.

Of the offseason signings, this year’s potential prize is Jeff Petry.

Like Schmidt last season and Ekman-Larsson the season before, Petry has been plagued with injuries and mediocre play in his last several seasons in Detroit.

His play has been well below his peak years in Montreal.

Like Schmidt and OEL, he comes to Florida at minimum wage.

The Florida scouting staff has been notorious for finding underperforming defenders whom they thought would fit right into their system and excel in Florida.

Petry will be fighting for playing time with Uvis Balinskis and is a probable third pairing with Kulikov.

He called his decision to come to a contender a “no-brainer” and was convinced (as were the Panthers’ scouts) that his injuries are behind him.

“Everything’s feeling good. It’s something that I tried to push through,’’ said Petry, who only played 44 games for the Red Wings last season.

“You never want to miss time with an injury. And I wanted to push through it, and ended up just taking the time off getting it feeling better, came back at the end of the year, and then now, having the last couple months to fully recover, fully go through the rehab process, get everything feeling good to make sure I’m ready for the start of September.”

The only other acquisition for the varsity squad was goaltender Danill Tarasov, who was acquired via trade with Columbus before free agency began.

As expected, he signed for just a smidge over $1 million to backup Sergei Bobrovsky.

Tarasov has knocked around the Columbus organization for five seasons.

He played 65 NHL games with a cumulative 3.44/.898; His KHL numbers were much better which may have been what prompted Florida to take a chance on a player whom Columbus drafted when Zito was in their front office.

With a superior team like Florida, his numbers just might improve.

Florida has a recent history of allowing journeymen a chance. Chris Driedger, Alex Lyon, and Stolarz all saw their careers take a skyward jump after a short time in Florida.

The only other new signings of note were basically for Charlotte.

Goaltenders Kirill Gerasimyuk got his entry-level deal with Brandon Bussi the likely No. 3 in net.

Forwards Nolan Foote and Jack Studnicka have some NHL experience and signed two-way deals.

We’ll see if there is another hidden gem among that group.

2024 STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS 2025

FLORIDA PANTHERS

UP NEXT

• NHL Free Agency: Opened Tuesday
• Panthers Rookie Camp, Fort Lauderdale IcePlex: Early September
• Prospect Showcase @ Tampa Bay Lightning: Early September, Wesley Chapel
• Training Camp: Mid-September
• Exhibition Games: Starts Sept. 21 @ Nashville (doubleheader)
• Opening NightOct 7-9 (opponent, time, date TBA)