Florida Panthers season preview 2022: Projected lineup, roster breakdown, grades and more
The Florida Panthers’ roster looks quite a bit different this season than it did a year ago.
They still expect it will be one of the NHL’s best.
The Panthers still boast top-end, All-Star talent on both offense and defense, as well as one of the league’s deepest goaltending tandems — even if some of the names are different.
Florida, however, was about much more than just its stars last season and the changes on the edges of the roster will be a big part of determining whether the Panthers can once again contend for a Stanley Cup in the 2022-23 NHL season.
Panthers’ projected opening-day lineup
Florida is carrying just 20 players on its NHL roster — the league minimum — at the start of the season because of cap constraints. All 20 will be in the lineup, with 12 forwards spread across four lines, six defensemen across three pairings, and a starting and backup goaltender.
Forwards:
Carter Verhaghe-Aleksander Barkov-Sam Reinhart
Matthew Tkachuk-Sam Bennett-Rudolfs Balcers
Eetu Luostarinen-Anton Lundell-Colin White
Ryan Lomberg-Nick Cousins-Patric Hornqvist
Defensemen:
Gustav Forsling-Aaron Ekblad
Marc Staal-Brandon Montour
Josh Mahura-Radko Gudas
Goaltenders:
Sergei Bobrovsky
Spencer Knight
Grading the 2022-23 Panthers
There are more question marks with the depth this year, but the Panthers still have top-end talent at every position. It’s why Florida is once again considered a Cup contender.
Goaltenders | B+
With the amount of money the Panthers are about to start paying their goaltenders, this position better be a strength.
Bobrovsky is the highest paid goalie in the league this year at $12 million and Knight just signed a three-year, $13.5 million deal, which will kick in at the start of next season.
Even if it will probably never be possible for Florida to get proper value out of the $14.5 million annual investment it’s about to start making in its goalies, the salaries are indicative of how highly the Panthers — and the league, at large — think of this tandem.
Bobrovsky put together a major bounce-back season last year, leading the NHL with 39 wins in the regular season and following it up with a rock-solid .911 save percentage in six postseason starts.
Even if there’s hesitation about Bobrovsky’s ability because of his two prior seasons, Knight provides one of the league’s best backups after he posted a .908 save percentage as a 20-year-old rookie in the 2021-22 NHL season.
Defensemen | A-
The defense might be the biggest unknown on this roster, partly because the Panthers traded away star defenseman MacKenzie Weegar as part of their trade for Tkachuk, but also because new coach Paul Maurice is going to ask his defensemen to play much differently than they did last year.
Former interim coach Andrew Brunette went all in on offense, encouraging his defensemen to jump up into the attack and it played to several players’ strengths. Maurice wants a more traditional, tighter look from his defense. It could be an adjustment for offensive-minded defensemen like Ekblad, Forsling and Montour.
At the same time, Ekblad is a perennial James Norris Memorial Trophy contender, if he can stay healthy, and Forsling proved himself as a legitimate top-pairing defender in each of the last two seasons after Ekblad went down with injuries. Florida is then banking on Montour and Gudas to help the bottom two pairings, where Staal and Mahura need to prove they’re deserving of everyday spots in the lineup.
Wingers | A-
The Panthers’ swap of All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau for Tkachuk is pretty close to a push and the wing is actually where most of Florida’s best role players are right now: Verhaeghe was the Panthers’ best player during the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs and Reinhart averaged a point per game last regular season.
Maurice plans to start the year with a top-heavy lineup by having those two flank Barkov on the top line, but Reinhart, at least, has the potentially to anchor his own line at some point because of his playmaking ability.
Further down the lineup, Lomberg and Hornqvist, who made up two-thirds of one of the NHL’s best lines, are still together and Florida will only get better once winger Anthony Duclair returns from an offseason Achilles tendon injury.
Centers | A-
This one is pretty simple: Barkov is one of the best first-line centers in the league, Bennett is a very good second-line center and Lundell might just be the best third-line center in the league.
There aren’t many weaknesses here and if Cousins struggles in his move from left wing, then Florida the Panthers have an easy fix: Luostarinen, whom Florida is trying to move to left wing to give him top-nine minutes, could always go back to the fourth line. He was one of the best fourth-line centers in the league last year, too.
