Five reasons the Florida Panthers can be South Florida’s sports saviors this year
Jonathan Huberdeau wanted to speed up the formalities anyway he could, so he shot back to the dressing room after the Florida Panthers’ season ended in the first round of the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs in May, and changed into a suit as quick as he could to go through his media obligations and get back on the plane back to Fort Lauderdale.
It was a striking image — the Panthers followed up the best regular season in franchise history with a first-round loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning — and wordlessly painted how Florida felt. It was an ending made frustrating mostly because of how promising the season looked and the Panthers were ready to speed the offseason along as quickly as possible.
“I definitely sense a little bit more hunger,” general manager Bill Zito said. “I get a sense from the guys that they want to get back at it, they’re excited and they can’t wait to play.”
It’s easy to understand why. Florida took the NHL by surprise last year and now faces real expectations to be one of the best teams in the league. For perhaps the first time ever, the Panthers are the South Florida team with the loftiest expectations and this is why they’re deserving of the hype:
1. There’s a ton of star power...
Zito swears he wasn’t surprised by what the Panthers did last season. To the first-time general manager, it didn’t matter what Florida had been doing for most of its existence, including four straight seasons finishing outside the top eight in the Eastern Conference. It mattered what he saw when he studied the roster before he took the job.
He saw forwards Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau, two fixtures on annual lists naming the NHL’s most underrated players. He saw defenseman Aaron Ekblad and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, a pair of former All-Stars with the ability to anchor a top-notch defense.
The coach probably counts as a star, too: Joel Quenneville won three Stanley Cups with the Chicago Blackhawks before joining the Panthers in 2019.
“We had pretty good players when we got here,” Zito said, “so we expect them to be good players”
The list of stars has only grown in the past year. Defenseman MacKenzie Weegar had a breakout season, and forward Carter Verhaeghe was playing at an All-Star level before an upper-body injury knocked him out for a month near the end of the year. Goaltender Spencer Knight and center Anton Lundell could both contend for the Calder Memorial Trophy as potential top rookies. Florida even signed forward Joe Thornton to a one-year deal, giving them a future Hall of Famer to likely play on one of their bottom two lines.
2. ...but there’s more than just a few stars.
Thornton, by the way, could’ve chosen to go just about anywhere. Who wouldn’t want a 42-year-old with 23 seasons of experience and six All-Star nods on his resume to be a veteran leader for a team with Cup aspirations? He’s at the point in his career where he’s only going somewhere he thinks he can contend for a Cup and he chose Sunrise.
Thornton is the second-oldest player and one of the most accomplished, and he spent most of his career playing for the perennially Cup-contending San Jose Sharks, so he knows what it takes to be an elite team. The Panthers, he said, are “special” because of their depth — not just their stars.
“They’re just a really balanced team. They’re a really deep team,” Thornton said in September. “I know Q likes using all four lines, six D and you’ve got some great goalies, so I think just the depth here is something special.”
Quenneville reiterated the same sentiment when training camp began last month. He has six proven defensemen — and Florida traded for an interesting seventh Sunday — and felt he had six forward lines worth of capable NHL players.
It’s hard to disagree: Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart and Owen Tippett are high-upside top-six forwards, and Anthony Duclair, Patric Hornqvist and Frank Vatrano — three proven wingers — will start the year on the bottom two lines. Left wing Ryan Lomberg, a playoff hero from the spring, might not even be in the opening-day lineup.
“It’s a good situation to be in,” Quenneville said.
3. The Panthers love a reclamation project.
Florida’s last-minute move to trade for defenseman Olli Juolevi on Sunday wasn’t exactly surprising, given Zito’s track record.
In April, the Panthers traded for Bennett, a former top-five pick in need of a change of scenery, and he scored 20 points in 15 games, including five in five postseason games. In July, Florida traded for Reinart, another former top-five pick, and he’s now slotted in at right wing on the top line.
Juolevi was also a top-five pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft and, although he’s not as accomplished as either of the two forwards were, he’s another high-upside flier joining the organization, and Quenneville’s track record suggests he will get the most out of him as a seventh defenseman.
The reclamation projects don’t stop there, though: Verhaeghe broke out last year after previously struggling to crack the lineup with the Lightning, Duclair had his best season after signing a one-year deal and defenseman Gustav Forsling emerged as an unlikely top-pairing player after Florida claimed him off waivers just before last season started.
4. The Panthers filled their most glaring needs.
The easiest criticism to levy against the Panthers is just how little they actually did in the offseason. Instead of trying to overhaul the roster after a first-round exit, Florida handed out a flurry of extensions to bring back 18 of the 22 players to suit up in the 2021 Cup playoffs.
Instead of spending big in free agency, the Panthers made smaller moves to bolster their most obvious weaknesses.
Up front, Florida hopes the addition of Reinhart will settle its first-line right wing spot after it was a revolving door next to Barkov for most of last year.
In goal, Knight is ready for a full season after taking over in the playoffs last year.
On defense, the biggest addition is a player who was already there: Ekblad is healthy after missing the postseason with an injury and he alone has the ability to transform the unit, which gave up four goals per game in the playoffs.
5. The organization is building the right way and committed to winning a Stanley Cup — even if it’s not this year.
On the rooftop of the Courtyard by Marriott Fort Lauderdale Downtown on Friday, the Panthers ushered in a new era.
Barkov, like Thornton, could play for any team in the NHL and would have had his choice once he became a free agent next year. Instead, he decided to sign an eight-year, $80 million extension.
The franchise knows it has a true star. The center knows he’s in a place he can win. They decided to team up for the rest of the decade and try to contend for championships for years.
Florida knows it can win a Cup this season, but it also knows it can win one next year or the year after. Fifteen of the 23 players on the opening-day roster are under contract through next year, including Barkov, Ekblad, Weegar, Bobrovsky, Lundell, Knight, Reinhart, Bennett, Verhaeghe, Hornqvist and Duclair.
The core — except for Huberdeau — is in place and Zito has, so far, proven capable of tinkering effectively on the margins. For a contender, stability, Zito said, is “very, very helpful to us.”
