More roster depth will help the Florida Panthers in the 2024 Stanley Cup final against the Edmonton Oilers after four years of moves by GM Bill Zito.

By the time the Florida Panthers reached the NHL's Stanley Cup final last season, they were a shell of themselves.

They were battered and exhausted following not just three tough rounds of post-season competition but also the three-month press that got them into the last NHL playoff berth in the East.

This year, they’re sitting prettier. They have the experience to understand how to pace themselves through a playoff marathon, and GM Bill Zito has added even more pieces to his roster, which is now deeper than ever.

Just four years into his tenure with the Florida Panthers, Zito has built a tremendous resume. He has already been named a finalist for the NHL’s GM of the year award three times.

The only players who remain from the roster he was handed in September 2020 are Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad and Sergei Bobrovsky. Three key pillars, for sure. But changes came quickly — and many paid big dividends.

In his first trade, Zito brought in cup-winning veteran Patric Hornqvist to add snarl and leadership and start a culture change in South Florida. 

With his first draft selection, he plucked Anton Lundell 12th overall. Then, Zito hit big on his first batch of free-agent signings, bringing in Carter Verhaeghe, Ryan Lomberg and Radko Gudas at reasonable price tags.

Zito’s first waiver pickup was defenseman Gustav Forsling. Four years later, he finished the 2023-24 regular season with an NHL-high plus-56 and has blossomed into Florida’s top-scoring defenseman in the playoffs — even though he gets almost no power-play time.

That’s an incredible first four months of business, made even more impressive by the fact that Zito did it during the fall of 2020 when the pandemic had upended every normal NHL routine.

At his first trade deadline in 2021, Zito made two more home-run swings, bringing in Brandon Montour for a third-round pick and Sam Bennett for a second.

Then, in Florida’s Presidents’ Trophy season in 2021-22, he spent three first-round picks on deals that brought in Sam Reinhart and rentals Ben Chiarot and Claude Giroux. Another first-rounder went out the door in the Matthew Tkachuk that summer.

Since then, Zito has had scarce draft capital on top of limited cap space available for roster upgrades. But he has still managed to add important pieces, as well as creating an environment that has seen Reinhart, Bennett, Verhaeghe and Forsling all play the best hockey of their careers.

At the beginning of last season, Forsling and free-agent signings Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Niko Mikkola and Dmitry Kulikov held down the fort defensively while Ekblad and Montour recovered from off-season surgeries. When the pair returned to the lineup in mid-November, Florida was a comfortable 10-5-1. There was no need to push to get back to the playoffs. And now, the Panthers have home-ice advantage in the final.

In free agency last summer, Zito also signed middle-six winger Evan Rodrigues, ace penalty killer Kevin Stenlund and backup goalie Anthony Stolarz, who put up a .925 save percentage in 27 appearances. That helped keep a healthy Bobrovsky’s workload to a comfortable 58 games and his best numbers since arriving in Florida in 2019. And he just outduelled Igor Shesterkin head-to-head in the Eastern Conference final.

At the 2024 deadline, Zito upped his group’s experience level with two veteran acquisitions. 

Longtime Buffalo Sabres captain Kyle Okposo is a well-respected 36-year-old seeking his first championship, while Cup-winner Vladimir Tarasenko has eight game-winning goals in 114 playoff games, including conference-final clinchers against the San Jose Sharks when he was with St. Louis in 2019, and against the New York Rangers last Saturday.

The Panthers’ depth allowed the team to easily weather an injury to Bennett early in the playoffs, which kept him out for five games. And after Lomberg was missed in 2023, when he was forced out of the last eight games of the post-season with an upper-body injury, he has dressed just five times in these playoffs.

Okposo been solid in his 11 games, including the three wins that closed out the series against the Rangers. And left winger Steven Lorentz, a 2023 trade pickup, has also been a valuable bottom-six addition, dressing in 12 games so far, while agitating Nick Cousins has played in 11.

The Stanley Cup playoffs are a war of attrition, as the Panthers saw last season. The extra depth that Zito has built into his roster should serve them well during what promises to be a hard-fought Stanley Cup final.