The final two teams are left in The Hockey News’ NHL summer splash rankings, which rank the off-seasons of every NHL team, and when you’re this high on the list, you’ve done a lot of things right.
Our rankings, which break down every team’s off-season additions, departures, hirings and firings, resulted in teams fitting into one of three areas: off-seasons that have improved the team, off-seasons that have kept the team largely the same, and off-seasons that have made the team worse. Moving from worst off-seasons to best off-seasons, we’re now well past the point where we’re focused on teams that have regressed or stayed the same.
And in this specific file, we’re looking at the No. 2 team in our rankings, the defending, back-to-back Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers,
Many thought the Panthers would have to strip away talent due to salary cap constrictions, but the primary reason they’re in second place on our summer splash list is the fact that they were able to keep things largely together. You needn’t make many additions when you’ve got a dynasty-in-the-making, so it’s understandable why Florida bent over backward to keep the gang together.
Additions
Nolan Foote (LW), Jeff Petry (D), Daniil Tarasov (G)
The Breakdown: The Panthers went all-in for their second straight Cup win last season, acquiring veteran left winger Brad Marchand from the Boston Bruins at the trade deadline. But while many presumed Marchand would be a pure rental and only a Panther for less than half of a season, Florida GM Bill Zito found a way to keep Marchand around for the long term, signing him to a six-year contract this summer.
Similarly, people wondered if the Panthers could hold onto UFAs Sam Bennett and defenseman Aaron Ekblad, but not only did Zito manage to do that, he also re-signed Marchand, Ekblad, and Bennett to deals that had a combined salary cap hit of $19.35 million. That’s terrific asset management, and that’s the primary reason we’ve got Florida ranked second overall on this list.
The Panthers did make a couple additions, first signing former Detroit Red Wings blueliner Jeff Petry to a low-cost, decent-reward $775,000 one-year contract. The 37-year-old Petry is far from his peak as a 40-point-producing D-man, but Florida has excelled at making new acquisitions thrive, and as a depth blueliner, Petry could have a late-career renewal as a Panther.
The other notable addition is former Columbus Blue Jackets netminder Tarasov, who effectively replaces Vitek Vanecek as Sergei Bobrovsky's understudy. Tarasov’s numbers (including a 3.54 goals-against average and .881 save percentage) were sub-par, but so was the Blue Jackets team in front of him. The 36-year-old Bobrovsky is still going to get the lion’s share of the work in Florida’s net, but it will be intriguing to see how they work Tarasov into the team dynamic.
Departures
Jesse Puljujarvi (RW), Nico Sturm (C), Nate Schmidt (D), Vitek Vanecek (G)
The Breakdown: Go through the rosters of teams that have won Cups, and see the type of roster turnover those teams go through in the immediate years following winning a championship. You’d find that most teams, for one reason or another, are forced to send at least a handful of players packing.
But this hasn’t been the case with Florida this summer. Zito has conducted a masterclass in roster retention, and that has resulted in losing only two Panthers players who appeared in playoff action last spring: veteran defenseman Schmidt, who averaged only 16:32 of ice time as a third-tier blueliner, and forward Sturm, who averaged just 8:59 of ice time in eight playoff games for Florida.
So, the Panthers have found a way to bring back 95 percent of their regular players and set themselves up for another deep playoff run next spring. Zito couldn’t have done a better job keeping the band together, and having to part ways only with two fringe players underscores what a great job Zito is doing as GM.
The Bottom Line
When we put these summer splash rankings together, THN.com’s writers and editors agreed that we weren’t going to reward teams simply for making a slew of changes. We wanted the big picture teams that painted this summer to dictate where we slotted a team in on this list, and that’s why the Panthers are ranked ahead of all but one of their 31 counterparts.
Zito has yet to win a Jim Gregory Award as the NHL’s best GM, but you’d have to think that will change after the recent success Zito has had. He found a way to utilize all his cap space by locking up UFAs when those UFAs had all the leverage. This has proven to be a problem for Zito’s GM colleagues, so it isn’t an understatement to note Zito is performing on another level right now.
It’s still going to be an uphill climb for the Panthers to win three straight Cups, but you can’t say Zito hasn’t given his players and Florida coach Paul Maurice all the tools they’ll need to make a deep playoff push and win it all. When few people believed Zito would re-sign all of Marchand, Ekblad and Bennett, he went out and did exactly that. And for that reason, the Panthers deserve to be second-overall on our summer splash list. Only one team had a better off-season, and that’s a credit to Zito & Co..
Summer Splash Rankings
2. Florida Panthers
9. Utah Mammoth
10. New York Rangers
13. St. Louis Blues
16. Ottawa Senators
17. Boston Bruins
18. Edmonton Oilers
19. Minnesota Wild
20. Seattle Kraken
27. Dallas Stars
28. Calgary Flames
30. Winnipeg Jets
32. Buffalo Sabres
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