Sep. 23: The Panthers released Walcott and Lopina from their NHL PTOs today (via our training camp roster tracker). The club said they’ve been reassigned to AHL Charlotte’s camp. They remain without guaranteed contracts there, so they’re still positioning themselves for minor-league deals.
Sep. 12: The Florida Panthers remain active in the PTO market. Earlier this week, the Panthers added veterans Tyler Motte, Noah Gregor, and Ben Harpur on PTOs, and now, according to insider Frank Seravalli, they’ve added two additional players to the mix in advance of their training camp: forwards Daniel Walcott and Josh Lopina.
Walcott, 31, is without question the more experienced player of the two. The 31-year-old Quebec native is beloved in Syracuse, New York, as the all-time franchise leader in games played for the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch. Walcott played his first full professional season in 2015-16 with the Crunch, and remained with the club through the 2024-25 season. Walcott wore a letter for the Crunch for the majority of that period, and was a valuable, versatile presence who set a career-high in offensive production with 13 goals and 32 points in the 2022-23 season.
It was the year prior, 2020-21, that Walcott played in the only NHL game of his career thus far. Walcott’s 2024-25 season was definitely a disappointment, as he only managed to register four goals and 12 points across 61 games played. It is likely that the steep decline in offensive production played a role in ending his time with the Crunch, but now with this PTO, he returns to Florida, at least temporarily, to compete for a full-time playing role within the Panthers organization.
At this stage, it looks highly unlikely that Walcott will be a legitimate contender for an NHL role with the Panthers, who are the defending Stanley Cup champions and possess one of the league’s most talent-rich rosters. But with a strong training camp and preseason, it is not out of the question that he earns a role with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers, albeit it could be via an AHL contract offer, rather than on a deal where he’d occupy one of a club’s 50 contract slots.
Complicating Walcott’s likelihood of remaining in the AHL is the fact that he does not qualify as a veteran player as per the AHL’s veteran rule, which does play a role in roster construction. AHL teams have a cap on the number of veteran skaters they are permitted to dress for any given regular-season game. The rule has been cited as a reason why some veteran players, who might be qualified to remain in North America’s second-best league, often have trouble finding a job with an AHL club.
The Panthers’ other PTO signing of the day, Lopina, does not face the same problem as Walcott. He has 203 career AHL games played to his name, meaning, for the time being, he remains a “development player” per league rules. The 24-year-old was a fourth-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks in 2021 and has played the last three seasons as a member of their AHL affiliate, the San Diego Gulls. The six-foot-two center had a career-high 14 goals in 2023-24, but could not build on that momentum in 2024-25, scoring just three times across 62 games.
Lopina was a stellar college hockey player at UMass Amherst, winning Hockey East Rookie of the Year honors in 2020-21 alongside an NCAA National Championship. But his near point-per-game offensive production has not translated in any real way from the NCAA to the pro ranks, and that is likely a large reason why the Ducks elected not to issue Lopina a qualifying offer a few months ago.
Now, Lopina gets a chance with another NHL organization, his first outside of the Ducks. Like Walcott, it’s unlikely Lopina will be able to win an NHL job, especially with Motte and Gregor also with the club on PTO’s. But it’s more realistic to imagine Lopina potentially seizing a role with the Checkers, especially, as mentioned, because he remains a “development player.” It will be up to him, though, to have as strong a camp and preseason as possible in order to put himself in a position to earn a spot in Charlotte.
