Last but certainly not least on this year’s Elimination Evals Series, the Florida Panthers. Talk about a team that has absolutely nothing to hang their heads over this summer, the Panthers really did have a bit of a magical run this postseason and in the end, gave it everything they had. The Panthers may have lost to Vegas in Game 5 to lose the Stanley Cup but when you factor in how they got there, it’s hard to really knock them. When you look at this year as a whole, you have to pencil it in as a success for Paul Maurice, Bill Zito and the Florida Panthers. While they barely squeezed into the playoffs following a President’s Trophy Winning season last year, they managed to be the final team standing in the way of what became the best team in the National Hockey League in the 2022-23 season. That being said, let’s recap the Cats run, talk about what worked, what went wrong and what to expect going into next year.
Arguably one of the most exciting moments in the entire Stanley Cup Playoffs and certainly for the Florida Panthers was their dramatic, come from behind, overtime win in Game 7 against the Boston Bruins. We know how heavy of favorites the Bruins were going into the playoffs and because of that, a lot of people slept on the Panthers. However, they worked their tails off, matched up to Boston really well and gave them a run for their money, forcing the series to seven. Down by one in the game's final minutes, Brandon Montour tied the game up and forced overtime. In which, Carter Verhaeghe would be the hero in overtime, crushing the Bruins historic season and launching what became quite the run for the Panthers.
Moving on to Round 2, Florida would head North of the border to take on the Toronto Maple Leafs. There, they decided that they were no longer the underdog and just completely took over the series, sending the Leafs home in five. Their Game 4 loss to the Leafs would be their final loss going into the Cup Final as they swept the Hurricanes to earn themselves quite the break before the Final round. There were plenty of high moments for the Panthers and you have to think that Game 7 win in Boston takes the cake there. However, the real game changing moment had to be that quadruple overtime win in Carolina in Game 1. Had Florida not found a way to come out on top of that one, it could have been an entirely different series. While it was still a close one with all four games being one goal games, (two overtimes) a sweep is still a sweep and the Panthers absolutely earned their place in the Cup Final.
Sure enough, the magic would slowly run out and a big part of that had to do with injuries. Anytime your top players get banged up it’s going to affect your team’s overall game but for Matthew Tkachuk, it would be pretty detrimental. Anyone who knows the kind of player Matthew Tkachuk is knows it would take a pretty serious injury to keep him off the ice and sure enough, that’s what happened. A broken sternum resulted in him barely playing the second half of Game 4 and looking back on it, the fact that he not only returned in that game but scored a huge goal is truly mind-boggling. While he was able to fight through it that night, he was eventually ruled out of Game 5 and rightfully so. Reports came out that he couldn’t even get out of bed or get himself dressed because of how intense the pain was the next morning. You truly hate to see it, especially after how incredible of a season Tkachuk had as well as how important he was to leading this team to the Cup Final.
Tkachuk wouldn’t be the only injury as it was also noted that Aaron Ekblad had broken his foot in Game ONE of the entire playoffs, had his shoulder pop out twice and tore his oblique. The fact that he played through most of the playoffs is also mind-boggling. Brandon Montour, who became one of the most important parts to this team alongside the aforementioned players, was also playing with a torn labrum and will require surgery with months of recovery time ahead of him. The Panthers were also without Eetu Luostorainen for the entirety of the Cup Final as he suffered a broken tibia at the end of the Carolina series. The fact that Florida was able to ice a semi-competitive team through all these injuries, especially to three of their most important players is noble in itself and definitely puts the results of their Cup Final in perspective.
Game 5 of the Cup Final was far from a close game. Once Vegas got on the board it was essentially game over and by the ninth goal of the game, it was clear what had happened. Florida just simply ran out of gas and if you blame them for that, revisit that list of injuries I just ran through. The playoffs are a long couple of months. We often forget that leading up to the playoffs is an entire 82 game season. It’s a long journey and that’s a huge part of what makes the Stanley Cup the hardest trophy to win in sports as well as what makes it so special. Not to mention, Florida was basically playing playoff caliber hockey throughout the weeks leading up to the postseason just to get themselves in there. It was clear as day, especially on those shifts where the Panthers were caught on the ice for several minutes at a time, not being able to change lines. Those moments led to goals and for as great as Sergei Bobrovsky was in the playoffs, he couldn’t carry him any longer.
Again, while the Panthers did win the President’s Trophy last season, very few folks expected them to get anywhere in the playoffs with the Bruins in their way. Not only did they prove everyone wrong, but they got all the way to the end and just fell short. This season will be very bittersweet for the Panthers and their fans, but will absolutely go down as a success, making this group all the more hungry in running it back next year. With that comes the big question that always comes when the final team gets eliminated, will they be able to get there again? More specifically, the big question with Florida will be related to goaltending as it was such a huge part of what got them through the middle round of those playoffs.
Sergei Bobrovsky will be 35 this summer and prior to these playoffs, wasn’t even their starting goalie. Bobrovsky has been very inconsistent over the years, so much so that the Panthers were considering a buyout, brainstorming ways to potentially move on from Bob and his $10 million dollar annual contract. While he certainly showed us he still has it, how reliable is he going to be to run it back for another year? Of all positions, age looks the worst on goaltenders and for how much he was counted on in these playoffs, you have to think it could’ve taken a toll on him. Alex Lyon, who the Panthers began the postseason with, will be among the team’s pending unrestricted free agents in the coming weeks, unlikely to be back next season. The team still has Spencer Knight signed through 2026, however there is still some uncertainty with him as he has been with the NHLPA’s Player Assistance Program since signing his $4.5 million AAV contract extension prior to this season.
Hopefully Spencer Knight is getting the help he needs and everything is going well with him as a person as I’m sure the Panthers will be hopeful for him to return to them in the Fall. Alongside Alex Lyon, Florida is likely losing the Staal brothers, Radko Gudas, Casey Fitzgerald, Lucas Carlsson and Patric Hornqvist, who spent the year on LTIR, to Free Agency. Between losing Marc Staal and Radko Gudas, plus likely being without Brandon Montour and possibly Aaron Ekbald to start the season, this team is going to need help on defense. Just from glancing at the names they have in the system, there isn’t really much to get overly excited about so whatever improvements this team is going to make in the off-season will likely have to come via Free Agency or trades.
Luckily in terms of offense, the majority of this group will be back next year so the team could really focus on defenseman in Free Agency. However, the pool there isn’t very deep. Dmitri Orlov and Ryan Graves are among the more enticing names available on the left side but at the same time, Florida is only going to have around $11 million in cap space to play with. They don’t have many RFA’s to worry about but Colin White could look for a bit of a pay raise from his current qualifying offer at $1.2. Bill Zito is going to have to get creative in order to fill some of these holes and with players like Sam Reinhart, Anthony Duclair, Brandon Montour and Gus Forsling entering the final years of their current deals, he’s going to be very busy this coming season. Florida will be an interesting situation to keep an eye on this summer as they certainly have work to do if they want to get back to where they were but don’t have a ton of clear answers on how to do it.
Chris Feldman
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