Florida Panthers

Offseason Evalutaion… So Far

As each day of summer passes we seem to be getting further and further away from obtaining Alex Tanguay via free agency. While I am not here to debate or comment on my opinion of him joining the Panthers, I will say that signing him for anything more than 4 million would be too much. In addition the Panthers have enough soft players that look to pass before they shoot anyway.

In looking at the offseason so far I wanted to evaluate and give the team an overall grade for how things have gone based on the changes that have happened. One of the things that this organIzation has been preaching over the last couple years is consistency. Well with free agency, that pretty much goes out the window. In addition if you want to improve your team and it’s chances of challenging for the Stanley Cup, then you need to make changes. Significant ones. Someday the Panthers will get the hint.

Let’s look at what they have lost so far: Goaltending: Craig Anderson. Forwards: Brett McLean, Anthony Stewart, Ville Peltonen, and Richard Zednik. Defense: Jay Bouwmeester, Karlis Skrastins, Nick Boynton, Steve Emminger, and Jassen Cullimore. A total of 10 players.

What’s been added: Goaltending: Scott Clemmensen. Forwards: Steven Reinpricht, with a couple open sopts to be filled by the likes of Michael Repik or Shawn Matthias, or heaven forbid Jeff Taffe.
Defense: Jordan Leopold, Ville Koistenen (need to have a Ville on the team), and Bryan Allen returning from injury. A total of 5-7 players. Quite a change between the departed and the added.
The real question then becomes, will or are the Panthers any better right now then they were last year, and what is the grade that can be give to these offseason moves?

I will start with the grade first. A solid C-! The goaltending is going to be the most difficult to predict on many levels. First, Craig Anderson was pretty solid as when he filled in, however in my opinion he is not a number one goalie. Did Scott Clemmensen play over his head last year? Is he really that good? Or was he just the benefactor of a good defensive system? We will see.

The forwards? UGH! Pretty much a wash. The only move was acquiring third line center Steven Reinpricht, who will be asked to play second line minutes, while Stevie Weiss will be shoved down our throats as the number one center. No improvement here at all! Other than that the only other major change is moving Nathan Horton back to wing where he belongs and continue to play his lazy style, that for some reason the Panthers continue to put up with.

Defense? Well the loss of Jay is going to hurt if only from the minutes that he provided and the offense that he was capable of. He may do better in Calgary surrounded by much better players, but here too much was expected of him and I still feel he is highly overrated. Losing Skrastins is going to hurt, as he was a solid defenseman that blocked shots, and logged some tough minutes.Adding Jordan Leopold is not, I repeat not going to make anyone forget Jay, or even Skrastins. Leopold is a nice defenseman, but he is probably a number 4 or 5 on many playoff teams, and here he’ll be asked to play as a 2 or 3. Bryan Allen returns from a knee injury, and we will not know how he responds for at least the first month.

So when looking at all the movement, and the replacements that have come in, with still 8 weeks remaining before camp opens, my evaluation of the Panthers would have to be that they are worse off now than they were last year. Why? They lost some significant defenseman. 3 players that were very solid in many areas. They were not all studs by any means, but were pretty good guys for the most part. I would like to add that the grit that Boynton provided will be missed. The forwards lines have not improved. I don’t think that Reinpricht is an upgrade over anyone that we lost, plus he’s the typical player that the Panthers have been signing lately. A guy on the way down, who at best is very average. Last year it was Cory Stillman, the year before it was the three musketeers of Radek Dvorak, Brett McLean and Ville Pentonen.

The Panthers will again struggle to score. I have been asking, begging and praying for a goal scorer forever. I know they are hard to get, but my goodness, enough is enough. Defensively, if we thought that the shots against were high, they will be only higher this year with the potential unit we’ll be suiting up. All the other teams in the Panthers division have done something to vastly improve, while the Panthers have only tweaked their roster. I am not saying go out and sign someone to an enourmous contract just to make waves, but this team has not been to the playoffs now for 8 bloody seasons! Oh, and did I mention that we went into the draft and free agency without a fulltime GM? Only here in the land of sunshine could an NHL team get away with that. Does anyone think that a team like Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, New Jersey, Detroit, Boston could get away with that? Hardly.

It’s going to be a long season folks. Mark my words. Last year was exciting up to the finish. They missed the playoffs by one point! A result of some lost leads late in the game, problem made worse by the loss of defenseman, lack of scoring from a true goal scorer, which was not addressed. And a horrible record in shootouts, which that problem was not addressed either. Could have picked up Jussi Jokinen last year off waivers! As I mentioned in a previous post, on the Panthers TV special, Panthers Summer Sizzle, which should have been renamed fizzle, the comment was, let’s improive by one point!
That would mean getting an extra point in a shooutout, something that was difficult last year.
Don’t get crazy with the improvement suggestions. Our new motto–One More Point?!

If there’s a hockey god, please spread alittle goodness on this team soon!

Thanks for reading.