After adding defenseman, Panthers still looking at trades for ‘anything and everything’
With five days until the trade deadline, the Florida Panthers were busy Thursday. They moved Frank Vatrano to the New York Rangers to clear some cap space ahead of the deadline and then, a few hours later, they landed Ben Chiarot in a trade with the Montreal Canadiens to bolster their defense.
With four days left until the trade deadline, Bill Zito says the Panthers aren’t done looking at ways to improve.
“We’re still investigating. We’re working pretty much anything and everything until the deadline,” the general manager said Thursday in Las Vegas before Florida faced the Las Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena. “That’s our job, so we’re going to continue to listen and investigate every way we can to make our team better.”
With more than $3.7 million in cap space available at the deadline, the Panthers have room to make another addition and potentially a high-profile one.
While Zito didn’t lay out any specific positions he’s targeting before the Monday deadline, Florida’s most glaring need is a right wing to play next to forwards Aleksander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe on the top line. The Panthers could also be in the market for some goalie depth with reserve goaltenders Jonas Johansson and Chris Gibson both dealing with injuries.
The Chiarot addition filled the Panthers’ most obvious hole, albeit at a steep cost. Florida sent the Canadiens prospect Ty Smilanic, a 2023 first-round pick and a 2022 fourth-round pick — the one it got back from the Rangers in the Vatrano trade — to bring Chiarot to Sunrise. While Chiarot was Montreal’s top defenseman this year and led the Canadiens in average time on ice, he might only be the Panthers’ sixth-best defender.
Still, Florida was seriously lacking a sixth defenseman to play next to Brandon Montour on the third pairing, with seven different players skating next to Montour already this year. Chiarot, who will be a free agent in the offseason, should stabilize the Panthers’ lineup, whether he plays next to Montour or lets Florida reorient its pairings.
Zito also said Chiarot, 30, was acquired to be more than just a rental, which tracks with the moves he made ahead of the deadline last year. When he traded for Montour and forward Sam Bennett last year, both were pending free agents and the Panthers wound up extending them. If all goes with with Chiarot in South Florida, Zito envisions a similar course of action.
“Anybody we bring we always would like to look to the future and I think that if they’re a good fit, and the right player and we can make it work we’d like to keep them,” the second-year GM said. “Certainly, we envision a way that might be a possibility and we would hope to do that, if possible.”
If Chiarot can become a long-term fixture on the Panthers’ blue line, it would help justify the cost. Florida is also betting on a change of scenery to lead to improved play from Chiarot, as only five players this year, entering Thursday, have been on the ice for more opposing goals than the left-handed Canadian.
Either way, the cost to acquire Chiarot will hamper the Panthers’ chase for a top-line winger. Florida doesn’t a first-round pick in either of the next two NHL Entry Drafts — it traded its 2023 first to the Buffalo Sabres for forward Sam Reinhart in the offseason — and no longer has any top 50 prospects, according to TheHockeyWriters.com’s midseason rankings. A trade for one of the top available forwards — such as Philadelphia Flyers veteran Claude Giroux or Anaheim Ducks winger Richard Rakell — would likely mean the Panthers’ trade partner would have to value highly right wing Owen Tippett, even though he has spent the bulk of the season in the American Hockey League.
AHL Charlotte held the former top-10 pick out of the lineup Thursday with the possibility he could be part of a trade this weekend.
Left wing Grigori Denisenko and center Aleksi Heponiemi are both top-100 prospects — ranked Nos. 61 and 95, respectively — and could both also be appealing trade chips.
After trading away Vatrano on the heels of a two-goal game, Florida is feeling “a little bit of a pit in our team,” Zito said, and the Panthers are doing their due diligence to make sure any pick-up will only add to their formula as a Stanley Cup contender.
“I don’t want to disrupt it,” Zito said. “Anybody we add has to be a team-first person, team-first player.”
