Credit goes to Panthers GM Bill Zito and the work he's done since being hired in September of 2020
We've spent a decent amount of time this summer speaking about the moves that have been made by Florida Panthers General Manager Bill Zito.
During his three years at the helm of the organization, Zito and his front office staff have completely reshaped and remodeled the team inside and out, changing both the way the game is played on the ice and the culture of the team off the ice.
In addition to adding players who are both very skilled and high character guys, Zito has been able to sign many of those players to team-friendly contracts.
It's allowed Florida to remain competitive in the wake of a flat-cap era while enduring some significant injuries and tough financial situations to manage in terms of dead cap money and the aforementioned injured players' impact on the cap.
That's why the Panthers were at the top of Dom Luszczysyzn of The Athletic's rankings of NHL team contract efficiency based off his graded scale of probability value against actual value.
Several of Florida's players (and their contracts) graded high on Luszczysyzn's list, but none higher than Matthew Tkachuk, who has a $9.5 million average annual value (AAV) for the next seven seasons.
Carter Verhaeghe ($4.2M x 2 years), Brandon Montour ($3.5M x 1 year), Sasha Barkov ($10M x 7 years) and Gus Forsling ($2.7M x 1 year) rounded out the Panthers top five value deals.
To be fair, Luszczysyzn's list does not include goaltender contracts.
If it did, Florida probably wouldn't stay at the top of the chart. Sergei Bobrovsky has three years left at $10 million per season, and Spencer Knight will earn $4.5 million for the next three seasons.
Bobrovsky was amazing during Florida's run to the Stanley Cup Final earlier this year, but outside of that, both he and Knight will need to perform better than they have during recent regular seasons if they're going to live up to those numbers.