The Florida Panthers have their backup goalie. What to know about Daniil Tarasov
The Florida Panthers have their new backup goaltender, acquiring Daniil Tarasov from the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday for a fifth-round pick (No. 160 overall) in the 2025 NHL Draft.
Tarasov, 26, will back up Sergei Bobrovsky, who is heading into the final year of his seven-year, $70 million deal with the Panthers. Both Bobrovsky and Tarasov are from Novokuznetsk, Russia, and Bobrovsky idolized Tarasov’s father, Vadim, growing up.
Tarasov, a third-round pick by Columbus in 2017 (when current Panthers president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Zito was a Blue Jackets assistant general manager), has played in 65 career NHL games since making his debut on Jan. 1, 2022, and holds a 19-34-6 record with a 3.44 goals against average and .898 save percentage. He went 7-10-2 in 20 games (19 starts) with Columbus last season, including logging his first career shutout.
While his record and overall stats aren’t anything to boast about, he has solid size at 6-5 and 196 pounds, something the Panthers covet in a goaltender.
He is in position to replace Vitek Vanecek as Florida’s No. 2 goaltender. Vanecek, acquired at the trade deadline from the San Jose Sharks, is slated to become an unrestricted free agent.
The Panthers still need to work out a contract with Tarasov, who is a restricted free agent. He had a cap hit of $1.05 million over the past three seasons with Columbus. Florida has until Monday to extend Tarasov a qualifying offer.
The acquisition checks off one of the Panthers’ needs for this offseason.
What happens from here is largely contingent on who from their big trio of pending free agents in forwards Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand plus defenseman Aaron Ekblad they are able to re-sign before the market opens on Tuesday. Assuming Florida gives qualifying offers to both Tarasov and restricted free agent forward Mackie Samoskevich, the Panthers will have 18 players — 11 forwards, five defensemen and two goaltenders — under contract before factoring in any potential moves with their pending free agents.
Justin Sourdif dealt for draft picks
The Panthers weren’t done dealing on Thursday just with the Tarasov trade.
Florida on Thursday night sent forward Justin Sourdif to the Washington Capitals for a pair of draft picks — a second-round selection in 2026 and a sixth-round choice in 2027.
Sourdif, a third-round pick by Florida in 2020, was a pending restricted free agent. He only played in four games with the Panthers, spending the rest of his pro career with the Charlotte Checkers, Florida’s American Hockey League affiliate. With Florida’s forward depth, it was going to be tough for Sourdif to crack a spot on the Panthers’ roster in 2025-26, so logic dictates they probably wouldn’t have given him a qualifying offer.
This story was originally published June 26, 2025 at 2:19 PM.
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