The Panthers no longer just sell hope. Now the Draft is for building sustained success
The days of the NHL Entry Draft are no longer the most important on the calendar for the Florida Panthers. After spending years with eyes toward the future, the Panthers are firmly contenders, hoping to become a fixture in the Stanley Cup playoffs and potentially even challenge for a Stanley Cup in the next few years.
The Panthers rebuild finally seems to be complete. Florida’s core of former top-five picks is hitting its prime, and the results manifested on the ice with the best points percentage in franchise history last year.
For general manager Bill Zito and director of scouting Shane Churla, the timeline still doesn’t change much in their approach.
“When Shane came in, we shared so many of the same visions as to how the draft should be run,” Zito said. “Best player available, with a theme of organizational need in tandem with the best player available.”
After drafting in the top 15 for four straight years and 10 of the past 12, the Panthers enter the 2021 NHL Entry Draft on Friday with their lowest first-round position ever. They will pick 24th overall on Day 1, then five more times on the second day of the NHL Draft on Saturday.
At least early on, Florida won’t be trying to plug in holes on its NHL roster. Whichever players the Panthers draft this weekend likely won’t be in Florida for multiple years. Florida will try to improve its Cup-contending roster through free agency, trades and development. The Entry Draft is for building sustainable success beyond the short-term window of contention.
“At some point you’ll need to restock goalies. Centers and defensemen are harder to get than wings,” Zito said, “so, yes, there is some strategy associated with it, but, by and large, best player available.”
‘Best player’ in first round
It’s even more the approach in the first round, the general manager said.
For most of their history, the Panthers could go into the Draft with a real idea of who they might come away with. In 2011, they picked star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau third. In 2013, they landed star center Aleksander Barkov with the No. 2 pick, then took defenseman Aaron Ekblad with the No. 1 overall selection in 2014. Even in the past three years, Florida could enter the draft knowing it had a chance to land left wing Grigori Denisenko, goaltender Spencer Knight and center Anton Lundell — all of whom are now top-30 prospects, according to ESPN.com.
At No. 24, it’s harder for the Panthers to hone in on individual targets. At least 10 different players are mentioned in major mock drafts, including Canadian left wing Brennan Othmann, Canadian defenseman Carson Lambos, Canadian center Xavier Bourgault, Finnish center Aatu Raty, Russian right wing Nikita Chibrikov and Swedish right wing Fabian Lysell.
Othmann, who’s predicted by ESPN and The Score to land in Florida, is the No. 8 North American skater in the draft, according to the NHL Central Scouting Bureau, and Raty is the No. 3 European skater.
Bourgault and Canadian center Logan Stankoven also popped up in multiple mock drafts as a potential Panthers target. Bourgault is the No. 13 North American skater in the Draft and Stankoven is No. 31.
“Best player,” Zito said, explaining his first-round philosophy. “I guess I would say we probably wouldn’t take a goalie, but you never know — perhaps.”
List of Panthers draft picks
The NHL will conduct the first round of the draft on Friday at 8 p.m., then hold the final six rounds Saturday at 11 a.m. Florida has picks in the second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh rounds on the final day of the draft.
The Panthers will pick No. 56 overall in the second round, No. 120 in the fourth, No. 152 in the fifth, No. 184 in the sixth and No. 210 in the seventh, which came from the Winnipeg Jets in a trade for defenseman Bogdan Kiselevich. Florida lost its second round pick in April when it traded the pick to the Buffalo Sabres for defenseman Brandon Montour and sent its own seventh-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks in April as part of a five-player deal.
While “best player available” is still at the heart of Florida approach, the second day is when the Panthers can worry about filling needs. Even these needs, though, are organizational, rather than plugging holes on the current roster.
Scouting should be smoother this year, too. Last year, Zito had only been the GM for about two weeks when the 2020 NHL Entry Draft arrived and he had yet to hire Churla as his director of amateur scouting.
The Lundell pick already seems to be a success, and still Zito expects this draft to go even better.
“It’s a well-oiled machine at this point, so I feel confident,” Zito said, “that the process is where we need it to be.”
