The Florida Panthers pulled off a blockbuster trade with the Ottawa Senators. But acquiring star winger Brady Tkachuk from the Sens still leaves the Panthers with a significant hole in net.
It's still early days in the off-season, but the Florida Panthers pulled off the biggest blockbuster move of the summer so far, acquiring star left winger Brady Tkachuk from the Ottawa Senators on Sunday.
Tkachuk joins his brother, Matthew Tkachuk, on a Panthers squad that now looks like everyone's least favorite team to play against. They already ranked second in the NHL in hits this season, and when Brady Tkachuk is healthy, he's good for well over 200 checks.
The Panthers front-loaded their offense a bit with the deal in terms of cap hit, but when everyone's healthy, they still have at least three very strong forward lines.
But the Panthers will still be very active over the next week or two. They still have some holes in the lineup, and none is bigger than the one in net.
As it stands, Florida's top goalies under contract are 25-year-old minor-leaguer Cooper Black and 22-year-old fifth-round draft pick Kirill Gerasimyuk. That can't inspire confidence in Panthers fans.
Veteran Panthers netminder Sergei Bobrovsky and his backup, Daniil Tarasov, are pending UFAs, and Bobrovsky is going to be hotly pursued in the free-agent market. So while the Panthers have about $7 million in salary cap space, that's not a lot to address their goaltending.
Unless Bobrovsky takes a discount, he could use up most, if not all, of that cap space. The Panthers could also pivot to another netminder – say, St. Louis Blues goalie and Stanley Cup winner Jordan Binnington.
Winnipeg Jets star goalie Connor Hellebuyck has also been linked to the Panthers in trade speculation. But Florida doesn't have much trade capital to use in trades after sending three first-rounders to the Senators in the Tkachuk deal.
They don't have a first-round pick in the next three drafts, so Zito would have to get very creative to bring in another star.
The Panthers have other issues to deal with this off-season. Their third defense pairing isn't imposing, and right winger Evan Rodrigues' salary of $3.075 million is a lot of money to pay a fourth-liner. Ideally, Zito should want additional financial flexibility to address issues during the season. So even if he does re-sign Bobrovsky, Zito still needs cap space.
If the Panthers have more luck on the health front, they have more than enough talent to not only be a playoff team in 2026-27 but be a Cup contender after one year out of the post-season.
Bringing in Brady Tkachuk is going to make the Panthers extremely tough to play against, but depending on the state of their netminding, Florida could be a big-time threat to win another championship – or they could be on the outside of the playoff picture looking in for the second straight season.
Bobrovsky has delivered mostly great results in his time with the Panthers. But if he's searching for the biggest financial payday he can get, it might not come from Florida. And the impact from Bobrovsky leaving the Panthers – and the domino effect in the goalie market – will reverberate across the NHL.
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