Florida Panthers' deadline: Will they move?

The Florida Panthers had a rough start of the season if we look at their previous standards as they were playing for .500 (12-12-4) after 28 games. We’ve reached to GM PKayne at this time asking if it was time for a change behind the bench or even a trade and PKayne told us he was totally faithful toward his coach & team and didn’t need to press the panic button at that time. Bob Hartley and his players took that vote of confidence seriously and they are on a 16-3-2 record since then. Yup, you’ve read that right, only 3 regular losses in the last 21 games. Of course, that streak helped the Panthers getting in a way better position in the standings as they are now 2nd in their division with a 28-15-6 record.

So they are now looking forward to the trade deadline where they’ll look to add a player or 2 to improve their team and help them take another step forward. And, even if one could say the Panthers are already a stacked team, they have around 9,000,000$ in non-pro-rata cap space going into the March 8th deadline. That’s a lot of space for a contender to do some moves. And as we know, PKayne is know for being a really active GM. It’s been more than 4 months since their last trade. And it’s not something we’re used to in the Sunshine state. So something must be brewing and I’m being told that PKayne is indeed working the phones and looking at different options. But what do the Florida Panthers really need to add in order to get better?

The goalie position hasn’t been really consistent in the past few seasons in Florida. Carey Price has been their goalie for almost 10 full seasons and he brought a lot of consistency but as we know, he’s now retired because of a knee injury. The Panthers went for a short term solution in Freddie Andersen that worked really well but again, injuries were a concern around him and they preferred to look elsewhere to fix their goaltender situation. They had an opportunity to trade for Carter Hart in June and thought they would fix their situation long term since he was only 24 years old. For now, he did. He’s having hell of a season with a 24-12-3 record, a 1.96 GAA and a .927 save percentage. But he might have a done something bad back in 2018 that could ruin his future. We’ll see, I guess. The good news is that Sammy Montembeault that was drafted by the team back in 2015 is looking to establish himself as a starting goalie and he might just be the best fit for the Panthers going forward since he’s also on a friendly 4x2,250,000$ contract. The more important is, for now, they don’t need help between the pipes because Montembeault is a great 1B that will be able to take the spot if Hart gets injured.

The blue line is also looking good. The Panthers are 2nd in the whole league for goals against and even if Hart is a part of this successful stats, the Dmen are also a big part of it. Cale Makar has a -10 differential but he’s playing a lot, always against the best players from the other team and is producing offensively at a good rate. But he’s the only dman with a negative differential. The 3rd pair of Jani Hakanpaa and Radko Gudas are playing respectively +17 and +16. Victor Hedman, Josh Morrissey and Jamie Oleksiak are all playing in the positives too and doing a great job physically. So the Panthers doesn’t really have a need there but hey, who knows!

And then, you have the forwards group. Nathan MacKinnon is doing really good with 56 points in 49 games. But then, it’s kind of underwhelming. Tim Stützle only has 34 points and Artemi Panarin, 32 points. Not a lot of scoring depth. But at the same time, team is playing a more defensive sound game and they’re winning. So do you really want to fix something that works?

It’s a tricky situation for PKayne as he will have the desire to take advantage of his cap space to improve his team but the truth is that they don’t really need to do it.

If I’d be a betting man, I’d say that a forward is most likely to be added to the group. But who would come out? I guess we’ll find out before March 8th!

Stay tuned!

Mark Kandy
Miami Sun