Panthers are ready to buy at deadline. ‘You want to try to reward the room,’ GM Zito said
Bill Zito was optimistic about the Florida Panthers’ prospects when he took over as general manager ahead of the 2020-21 NHL season last year.
He had a three-time Stanley Cup-winning coach in Joel Quenneville. He knew he had at least one All-Star in Jonathan Huberdeau and he knew Aleksander Barkov still had to the ability to be one of the best players in the league, so he tried to supplement his existing cast with savvy, under-the-radar additions and some of them, like Carter Verhaeghe, have become stars themselves.
Now the first-time GM has a chance to make the sort of high-profile move for a big-name talent he has mostly avoided so far in his seven-month tenure and he can do it without sacrificing much of the Panthers’ future. It’s exactly the trade-deadline plan he has outlined now that Florida is an unlikely Stanley Cup contender in his debut season.
“Obviously, you want to try to reward the room, and buttress and support the team,” Zito told the Miami Herald on Tuesday. “You have to be very careful not to interfere, and only to support and buttress. The team is a delicate thing, so anything we do would obviously be with the goal of supporting the team and keeping the long-term plan in place.”
With an array of offseason moves and three trades already in April, Zito has proved a willingness to tinker and he has mostly made his deals without sacrificing the core. He made two cap-clearing trades in the last two weeks, then traded just a third-round pick to the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday to land defenseman Brandon Montour.
On Saturday, he made another low-risk move, signing winger Nikita Gusev to a one-year, $1-million deal after the New Jersey Devils waived the 2018 most valuable player of Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League on Friday. The series of moves has already improved the Panthers and left them more than $11 million in cap space, according to CapFriendly, while only sacrificing four players who had combined for four points.
With the trade deadline set for 3 p.m. on Monday, Florida (26-12-4) has the cap flexibility to add almost anyone on the market and a thrilling first three months of the season have set up the Panthers to be buyers — and a current three-game losing streak has exposed their need to make a move to remain in Cup contention.
“I don’t think that you can look at the points at any particular spot in the temporal timeline of where we are,” Zito said. “The urgency’s always going to be there.”
More defensive help for Panthers?
Ever since defenseman Aaron Ekblad went down with a likely season-ending leg fracture last month, Florida has felt a void on defense.
The Panthers are deep enough to get by and Gustav Forsling has performed admirably in his shift up to the top pairing, but fellow defenseman Keith Yandle is struggling, leaving Florida with a void in its top four.
While Montour should slide into one of the top two pairings and help out the power play, the Panthers could still add another and move Forsling into a less substantial role.
Dallas Stars defenseman Jamie Oleksiak and Anaheim Ducks defenseman Josh Manson are probably the top two defensemen on the market after the Tampa Bay Lightning landed David Savard in a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Florida was involved in Savard discussions, according to multiple reports.
A superstar splash for Panthers?
Taylor Hall is, without question, the biggest name on the market heading into the deadline. The Sabres left wing won the Hart Memorial Trophy in 2018, although he has just 19 points and a plus-minus of negative-21 this season. Whatever team deals for him will be taking a risk, hoping he can recapture his form from last decade.
While there’s no indication the Panthers are interested, they are looking for more help up front and have plenty of room to take on his $8-million cap hit. The forward market is also suddenly deeper than it is for defensemen. St. Louis Blues winger Mike Hoffman, who played for the Panthers from 2018-2020, and Los Angeles Kings left wing Alex Iafallo are two of the top players available.
“Obviously, it’s a nice position to be in,” Zito said. “We just will evaluate accordingly.”
This story was originally published April 11, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
