Florida did some shopping during free agency and is going to have some new faces in the dressing room
The dust has settled following the feeding frenzy that is the start of free agency.
Dozens upon dozens of players signed new contracts with new teams and will be finding new roles in new cities.
Obviously it’s still very early in the offseason and additional moves will be made, trades will happen and there are still some players out there looking for fresh starts.
But we can still have some fun anyway, right?
After giving it some deep thought, and taking into account the expectations regarding injuries, here are my way-too-early forward lines and defensive pairings for Panthers Opening Night.
FORWARDS
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Nick Cousins
Ryan Lomberg – Kevin Stenlund – Steven Lorentz
Next man up: Grigori Denisenko
Wildcard: Aleksi Heponiemi,
Eventual NHL candidates: Mackie Samoskevich, Ryan McAllister
Thoughts: With the forwards, it will be very interesting to see how some of the wingers are deployed. A lot of thought went into swapping Rodrigues and Luostarinen, as Eetu’s game got better and better last season and there is no reason to think he won’t continue to blossom. Rodrigues being a shoot-first guy who loves to one-time the puck makes him a perfect winger for Barkov, who is going to pass first nine times out of ten.
DEFENSEMEN
Gus Forsling – Dmitry Kulikov
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Niko Mikkola
Lucas Carlsson – Josh Mahura
Next man up: Mike Reilly
Wildcards: Matt Kiersted, Uvis Balinskis
Thoughts: The versatile Kulikov is perhaps better suited alongside Forsling on a pairing that will see a lot of minutes, while pairing the defensively sound Mikkola with Ekman-Larsson. In this situation, with Carlsson earning a spot, it’s also conceivable that he receive some time on the second power play. With the offensive prowess he showed last season, it would be silly not to give him an opportunity to continue on that track at the NHL level.