LAST SEASON
The Florida Panthers ended their 2023-24 season as champions but weren’t always a popular pick to get over the hump in their 30th season as a franchise. With their blueline ravaged by injuries sustained in a surprise run to the 2023 Stanley Cup Final, a playoff hangover seemed inevitable.
Instead, star turns from defenseman Gustav Forsling (league-best +56) and forward Sam Reinhart (57 G) brought the Cats to a new level; Florida won the Atlantic Division with a league-leading +68 goal differential.
The Panthers entered the Stanley Cup Playoffs not as the gutsy overachievers who lost to Vegas in 2023 but as a juggernaut with unfinished business. They dispatched the Tampa Bay Lightning, Boston Bruins, and New York Rangers to escape the East without facing elimination before goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stifled the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 to win the Cup.
After Brandon Montour (team-high 23:49 ATOI since 2022) led the customary post-championship exodus, repeating the trick won’t be easy, but coach Paul Maurice’s battle-hardened group doesn’t mind a challenge.
KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES
Additions
A.J. Greer, LW
Chris Driedger, G
Tomas Nosek, C
Jesper Boqvist, LW
Nate Schmidt, D
MacKenzie Entwistle, RW
Jaycob Megna, D
Adam Boqvist, D
Departures
Brandon Montour, D (Sea)
Vladimir Tarasenko, RW (Det)
Oliver Ekman-Larsson, D (Tor)
Anthony Stolarz, G (Tor)
Nick Cousins, C (UFA)
Kyle Okposo, RW (UFA)
Kevin Stenlund, C (Uta)
Casey Fitzgerald, D (NYR)
Steven Lorentz, C (UFA)
Josh Mahura, D (Sea)
OFFENSE
Sasha Barkov, the Panthers’ captain and greatest-ever player, finally put together a postseason effort (22 P in 24 GP) worthy of his glowing reputation in 2024. Could a rare healthy season vault him into the MVP discussion? The hulking Finn has scored at a 97-point pace to accompany his vaunted defense over the last three seasons but has missed at least nine games during each of them. Reinhart isn’t going anywhere as his running mate; his 57-goal eruption bought him an eight-year, $69-million extension. Including the playoffs, the cerebral duo outchanced the bad guys 570-397 at 5-on-5.
Maurice keeps playmaking power forward Matthew Tkachuk separate from Barkov, and they haven’t needed each other so far. That Tkachuk’s 88-point effort last season was a disappointment attests to his game-breaking skill. He scored 82 goals and 213 points from 2022-2024 and would have broken the century mark for the third time last season if not for comically bad luck (3.9 SH% in 36 GP) before the turn of the year.
Carter Verhaeghe has unsurprisingly thrived alongside both Florida’s superstars. The late bloomer is 14th in goals over the past two seasons (76), just ahead of Sidney Crosby (75) and Nikita Kucherov (74), and his playoff heroics (24 G in 55 GP since 2022) are becoming a yearly tradition. The star power ends there for last year’s 12th-ranked attack, but contributors are dotted throughout the rest of the lineup.
Center Sam Bennett has scored over a 55-point pace since arriving in South Beach from Calgary. His forechecking and nasty edge make him an asset as Tkachuk’s center. Few players better epitomize “Panther Hockey,” mind games and all.
Anton Lundell, nicknamed ‘Baby Barkov’ after his countryman, is probably too talented for the third line, but has yet to improve on his stellar rookie campaign from 2021-22 (18 G, 44 P in 65 GP). After a breakout postseason (17 P, 16:12 ATOI in 24 GP), GM Bill Zito bet this is the year the slick center puts it all together with a six-year, $30-million extension.
Evan Rodrigues (39 P, +26 in 80 GP) is a defensively sound Swiss Army knife who flip-flopped with Verhaeghe across the top two units last season. Eetu Luostarinen is a similar player who played more exclusively in matchup minutes (27 P, down from 43 in 2022-23).
DEFENSE
Gustav Forsling’s +131 rating since joining the Panthers is second only to Colorado’s Devon Toews (+148) over that four-season span, but Forsling is only now getting recognition as one of the best defensemen in the world. He produced top pair results alongside Oliver Ekman-Larsson (55.14% of scoring chances) and was even better after usual partner Aaron Ekblad returned from offseason surgery. The mobile duo outscored the opposition 29-15 at five-on-five and led a group that finished second in scoring defense.
With Montour and ‘OEL’ gone, the rest of the blueline isn’t quite so inspiring on paper.
Niko Mikkola led the club in hits (198) and blocks (124) in his first season in Sunrise, providing muscle on the second unit while clearing a career-high 20 minutes of average ice time. Every team needs big, mean D-men, but is Mikkola capable of driving a pair? His offense is a nonfactor (8 G in 252 career games), and his 21 minor penalties were tied for 23rd-most among defensemen. There are cracks in the big man’s game, and Montour isn’t around to cover them anymore.
Dmitry Kulikov played more than 350 minutes with Mikkola in 2023-24, most of them during Montour’s 16-game recovery from his own offseason surgery. Another blood-and-guts guy, he’s more suited to a third-pair role at this stage in his career. There isn’t exactly a wealth of options for Maurice to choose from, though, and Kulikov, who can play either side, showed he has some life left in his legs last season (+15, 54% of scoring chances).
Lucky for Maurice, he has a wealth of forwards that buy into Florida’s watertight defensive scheme.
Barkov is the reigning Selke winner and controlled more than 60% of expected goals and high-danger chances. Reinhart’s metrics were similarly dominant.
With two-way stars at the top of the lineup and Rodrigues, Lundell, and Luostarinen around to keep the middle-six dialled in on defense, the Panthers shouldn’t need an A+ blueline to keep the other team off the board.
GOALTENDING
Another reason the Panthers aren’t sweating over their defensive personnel is the guy behind them, Sergei Bobrovsky. Imagine reading that in 2021, when the two-time Vezina winner was the worst value-for-money goalie in the NHL. Since then, he led the league in wins in 2022, shook off a bad regular season to carry the Cats to the Cup in 2023, and finished the job in 2024 after being named a Vezina finalist.
Life is good for ‘Bob,’ who has bounced back from a rocky start in South Florida to punch his ticket to the Hall-of-Fame. With 160 regular season starts and 53 playoff appearances since 2021, can the 35-year-old keep this up? If he does start to slip, Maurice has interesting backup options.
Spencer Knight is expected to return to the NHL for the first time since February 2023, when he left the team to work through his struggles with OCD. The organization buried his hefty $4.5 million cap hit in the AHL last season, where he finally got some consistent reps (2.41 GAA, .905 SV% in 45 GP). In the second year of an expensive contract, this is Knight’s chance to prove he’s still Bobrovsky’s successor.
Chris Driedger returned to the Cats in free agency as insurance after an injury-riddled stint with the Seattle Kraken. The 30-year-old never got his chance to be the guy out west but was excellent in his first stint in Florida (34-21-8, 2.07 GAA, .931 SV%).
COACHING
Eyebrows were raised in June 2022 when instead of retaining Andrew Brunette, the interim coach who led the Panthers to the Presidents’ Trophy in the wake of Joel Quenneville’s disgrace and resignation, Bill Zito hired veteran bench boss Paul Maurice.
Maurice had resigned from his post with the Jets just a few months earlier amid rumors the inmates were running the asylum in Winnipeg. Zito didn’t kick Brunette to the curb for an unmissable chance at a proven winner, either: ‘PoMo’ hadn’t advanced to the Stanley Cup Final in 20 years.
It’s safe to say the gamble worked out. It took an up-and-down first season and a miraculous late charge to get the Panthers into the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but they haven’t looked back since.
Maurice’s laissez-faire approach to the room has allowed big personalities like Tkachuk to flourish. Maurice’s gradual transformation of the team’s defensive structure has revitalized Bobrovsky’s career. After 30 years, Maurice is right where he belongs.
ROOKIES
Like most great teams, the Panthers’ ascent up the standings has coincided with bold trades that cost most of their picks and prospects. They haven’t picked in the first round since 2021 and, barring anything unforeseen, won’t in 2025, either.
Their most recent first-rounder, former Michigan Wolverine Mackie Samoskevich, should debut this season to fill the hole Russian sniper Vladimir Tarasenko (now a Detroit Red Wing) left in the top nine.
Samoskevich, a slick playmaker, was blanked in seven NHL contests before adjusting to the pro pace to collect 44 points in his final 45 games for AHL Charlotte. We project him starting the year on Lundell’s line, but the 21-year-old might be better off alongside Barkov and Reinhart or Bennett and Tkachuk.
Those duos can drive play with anyone and would boost Samoskevich’s scoring potential while freeing up Rodrigues to form a shutdown line with Luostarinen and Lundell.
BURNING QUESTIONS
1. How much pressure falls on Forsling and Ekblad’s shoulders? Losing Montour and OEL left Florida thin on the back end, but another significant issue with the duo’s free agency departure is that they ran both power-play units. The obvious replacements are Forsling, who has racked up 35 even-strength points or more in three straight seasons, and Ekblad, an eight-time 10-goal scorer. That could mean an extra three to five minutes a night, taking either player near the top of the league’s ice time leaders. Fitness freak Forsling should cope without incident, but Ekblad already misses 10+ games due to injury every season. Can his body hold up in an expanded role?
2. Who is the next great Panthers reclamation project? Trading for Tkachuk was a big swing that’s already one of the best moves of the past decade, but the key cog of the Panthers’ organizational strategy is the team’s penchant for finding great players on the cheap. Bennett and Montour cost virtually nothing, while Verhaeghe and Forsling actually cost nothing. Who’s next? Adam Boqvist is a good bet. The former first-round blueliner has scored at a 33-point pace during his career but never carved out a consistent starting role in Chicago or Columbus. He has one with his name on it in Florida, and their penchant for player development could land him in the top four with a little bit of luck.
3. Is the window closing? It’s never a bad time to win the greatest prize in hockey, but the Cats sure picked their spot. Reinhart priced them out of Montour, a dynamic D that produced excellent results with Mikkola and even an aging Marc Staal. Ekman-Larsson and Tarasenko secured their last big contracts, stripping some great depth from Maurice’s lineup. Verhaeghe, Bennett, and Ekblad need extensions, and with Lundell locked up, keeping all three could get tricky. Like their archrival Lightning before them, Florida is learning the hard way that it never gets any easier to win the big one.
PREDICTION
The Bruins, Lightning, and Toronto Maple Leafs all made aggressive improvements in the offseason in the hopes of knocking off the Panthers in the Atlantic. Given Florida’s considerable free agency losses and just how much extra hockey they’ve played, it won’t be easy to win their third division crown in four seasons. Making the playoffs should still be a given for the champs, and they know better than anyone how to string together series wins.
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