THN Florida takes a stab at predicting the Panthers 23-man Opening Night roster
The NHL preseason is finally in the rearview mirror, and you know what that means.
Next stop, Opening Night.
Paul Maurice and the Florida Panthers will head up to the friendly Midwest where they’ll kick off the season against the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night.
The Panthers will officially announce their opening night roster soon enough, but before that, let’s have a little fun and predict who will make the cut.
Here are the players who we think should be on the Opening Night roster.
Forwards: Sasha Barkov, Carter Verhaeghe, Evan Rodrigues, Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk, Nick Cousins, Eetu Luostarinen, Anton Lundell, Sam Reinhart, Mackie Samoskevich, Ryan Lomberg, Steven Lorentz, Kevin Stenlund, Justin Sourdif
Strong camps from rookies Mackie Samoskevich and Justin Sourdif were too much to ignore. Combine that with the injury to Sam Bennett and there is room, at least early in the season, for both to get some playing time. We’ll see what they do with it.
Brett Ritchie may end up getting offered a contract as well. His play fits Florida’s systems quite well, but an injury kept him off the ice during the final week of camp. Considering he was on a PTO, that made predicting his roster spot a bit murky.
Defensemen: Gus Forsling, Oliver-Ekman Larsson, Dmitry Kulikov, Josh Mahura, Niko Mikkola, Mike Reilly, Casey Fitzgerald
Florida is going to have quite the logjam on the blueline when Montour and Ekblad eventually return. Uvis Balinskis and John Ludvig both put in strong camps and got some serious consideration. Balinskis received plenty of playing time as he worked through the transition to North American hockey while a late injury for Ludvig slowed the progress of what was a solid camp and preseason. Fitzgerald’s play seemed to improve as camp went on and by the end, he was very noticeable on the ice.
Goaltenders: Sergei Bobrovsky, Anthony Stolarz
Spencer Knight will start the season in the AHL so that he can get a good amount of playing time, and it will be interesting to see how the Panthers maneuver their goaltending situation as the season progresses.
Injured Reserve: Aaron Ekblad, Brandon Montour
With Ekblad and Montour expected to begin the season on LTIR, their combined $11 million in salary won’t count against the Panthers cap number.
That is, until they come back, which is expected to happen around mid-December.
Florida won’t have to worry about coming close to the salary cap while they’re out, which means they can carry a full 23-man roster if they so choose.
When Ekblad and Montour do return, some adjustments will need to be made.
Fortunately for Florida, the players who will be filling the roster during the aforementioned defensemen’s absence all hold very low cap hits.
