Sergei Bobrovsky was amazing during Florida's run to the Stanley Cup Final, but his regular seasons have been unimpressive
The 2023-24 NHL season is drawing closer by the day.
Now that we're into August, rosters are mostly set across the league. We can now look ahead to the coming year and start discussing how things can go, what needs to happen for success, what can derail the season…you know, all the goodies.
The Hockey News is currently running a NHL Hot Seat Radar for all 32 teams in the league, and Tuesday they featured the Florida Panthers.
For each team, THN is highlighting a player on the hot seat, a player on the warm seat and one on the cold seat.
Placed on the hottest of seats was goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. The reasons behind it are his paltry regular season numbers and the three years and $30 million remaining on his contract.
I don't agree that Bobrovsky is on the hot seat though, at least not the way the story does, which indicates poor play could lead to him being moved to another team.
If Bob isn't playing well, the only way any team takes on that deal is if Florida ate a big chunk of his salary.
Now, in terms of his role as starting goalie, that's where I'd say Bobrovsky is on the hot seat. To be fair, you could argue he's been on the hot seat for years, but at no time has any other goalie played well enough to dethrone him.
Chris Driedger got on a roll at one point during his tenure in Sunrise but an injury stifled that progress, and Spencer Knight has yet to be good enough for long enough to stake a claim on the goal crease.
Bob's contract will make him the default starter, but the lack of anyone outplaying him will keep him in the role until either someone better comes along or he plays out the rest of his deal.
On the warm seat, THN has newly signed defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. I think it depends on what the expectation is for the veteran blueliner.
Considering his track record, it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility to think he can provide serviceable minutes as an offensive-minded defenseman.
Ekman-Larsson is coming off arguably the worst full season he's had in the NHL, so there's nowhere to go but up, right?
Well, no. Continuing on that downward trajectory could lead to the 32-year-old having to fight to stay in the league.
On the cold seat is Panthers captain Sasha Barkov. He's locked into a contract that pays an AAV of $10 million through the 2029-30 season.
While yes, that's a big number, Barkov is one of the few players in the league that is absolutely worth the money.
He'll be 28 when the season begins, meaning he's just entering what should be the prime years of his career.
Barkov has become one of the best two-way centers in the game, he's a point-per-game-or-better player and should be in a Panthers sweater for a long, long time.