Offseason Keys: Florida Panthers

As teams are eliminated from the Qualifying Round, it means that the offseason has arrived for several more squads.  Having covered the teams that weren’t a part of the NHL’s return, we shift our focus to the ones that have been ousted.  Next up is a look at Florida.

While they missed the playoffs a year ago, expectations were justifiably high for the Panthers coming into the season.  They made a big splash behind the bench with the hiring of Joel Quenneville, added a big-name goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky along with some other capable veterans.  That was supposed to be enough to give them a big boost.  It didn’t happen.  Instead, Bobrovsky struggled and they continued to be on the playoff bubble in the East.  They didn’t fare particularly well in the Qualifying Round against the Islanders which has them looking to shake things up again.  Here’s what they’ll be looking to accomplish.

Find New GM

First things first.  After officially letting Dale Tallon go early this week (via a non-renewal of his contract), the Panthers need to decide who will be making the decisions.  Tallon had been in the role for most of the last decade with Tom Rowe briefly holding the position for less than a year.

Considering that they already made one cost-cutting move before the pandemic hit when they shipped Vincent Trocheck to Carolina, it will be interesting to see if they look for a more under the radar candidate with an eye on trying to save some money, especially in the face of an expected decline in revenues for another couple of years after this.

It will also be worth watching to see if they revert back to the mindset that saw Rowe put in the role back in 2016 when the team looked to go in a more analytically-minded direction.  Tallon has the reputation for being more of an old-school general manager so a shift towards a more analytics-driven approach is something that could certainly be on the table.

The search is still in the early stages as the Panthers look to get permission to speak to candidates.  Montreal assistant GM Scott Mellanby is one of the known scheduled interviews while Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic adds former Kings executive Mike Futa to that list; there will be several others considered as well.  Florida will have some work to do in the coming months but they can’t do much until they determine who Tallon’s replacement will be.

Who Stays, Who Goes?

Taylor Hall, Alex Pietrangelo, and Torey Krug stand at the top of the upcoming UFA class but they’re sandwiched in the top five in scoring by a pair of Florida wingers in Mike Hoffman and Evgenii Dadonov.  At this point, it seems unlikely that the team will be able to afford to re-sign both of them while filling their other areas of need and staying within budget so it seems as if they’ll have to pick which one they want to try to keep.

Hoffman has the longer track record of success at the NHL level.  He led the team in goals this season with 29 and his point per game average was 0.86, a career high that had him playing just above a 70-point pace.  He’s also a significant threat on the man advantage, averaging nearly 12 power play goals per year over the past five seasons.  Even though his all-around game isn’t the strongest, being that type of scoring threat is going to draw a lot of attention on the open market, even with the salary cap challenges that the pandemic has presented.  Hoffman had a cap hit of just under $5.2MM on his soon-ending contract and he should be in line for a raise on that mark this offseason.

As for Dadonov, his point per game rate dipped a bit this season although he was on pace to match the 28 goals he put up in each of his first two years back with the Panthers.  After a stint in the KHL, his second go-round with Florida has been much more productive and since his return, he has been a capable top-six forward at a minimum; his first two years back saw him put up top line numbers.  The lighter track record may lower his market a little bit and while he’s looking at a nice pay bump on his $4MM AAV, he should come in a little bit cheaper than Hoffman.

Both players will be entering their age-31 year and it appears that their best-case scenario is that one will stay and one will go.

Add Defensive Help

Florida has spent a lot of money trying to shore things up defensively in recent years.  Aaron Ekblad is making $7.5MM per year.  They handed Keith Yandle $6.35MM per season and felt that Michael Matheson was a core cog, giving him $4.875MM.  That wasn’t enough so last summer, they added Anton Stralman for $5.5MM per year while inking what appeared to be a significant upgrade between the pipes in Bobrovsky with the second-richest cap hit for a goaltender in NHL history.

Those moves were supposed to propel them out of 28th in the league in goals allowed.  Instead, after the extra money invested in preventing goals, they still wound up in 28th place.

Evidently, spending roughly half of the salary cap on defense and goaltending isn’t enough to move the needle.  They don’t want to invest more between the pipes given how much they’re spending on Bobrovsky so trying to add another blueliner will be what the new GM needs to do.  Mark Pysyk is a pending unrestricted free agent (and at this point, may be a better winger than a defenseman anyway) while Josh Brown is best utilized as a seventh defender so there is a vacancy that can be filled.  They may not be able to throw much more money at that position so whoever gets the GM job will need to spend wisely to help bolster their back end and give Bobrovsky some much-needed help in the process.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.