Down and Out: How do the Florida Panthers navigate the cap crunch?

The Florida Panthers had their most successful season in their 29-year history, but they’re still left with a sour taste in their mouth after a disappointing second-round showing against the Tampa Bay Lightning that saw them get swept.

It won’t be any easier for them in the offseason, either. They have just over $3 million in cap space, thanks to the extensions of Alexander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe kicking in, as well as an $5 million-plus cap hit from Keith Yandle’s buyout next season. They just sacrificed a lot of their draft capital and prospect pool to get Claude Giroux and Ben Chiarot at the deadline, so no internal help is on the way. They also have to worry about an extension for leading scorer Jonathan Huberdeau, who will surely want something in the range of Barkov’s $10 million AAV.

Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna continued the Down and Out series talking about the Florida Panthers and what their biggest priority this offseason should be.

Mike McKenna: “[Jonathan Huberdeau] is No. 1, and I think the coaching decisions are going to be big. We just need some clarity here. Not us as media members, but Brunette’s got to fill a staff, he needs some assistant coaches. I talked to a longtime assistant coach last week, who said, ‘I don’t have anything, I don’t know what’s going on here.’ This is the exact type of scenario where I think there’s a lot of people waiting to see, and coaches want to get hired as soon as they can so they can get settled. And you want to get the top talent, so that’s first and foremost.

"And then you have to decide like, Barkov, Huberdeau, Bobrovsky, are you going to have three guys over $10 million on your roster? That’s realistic. So you have to start looking at pairing money down somewhere, and Hornqvist’s deal at $5.3 million really stands out. Can you really live with that if you’re Bill Zito? You’re going to have to create cap flexibility somehow, because they have only five NHL defensemen on one-way contracts, and that’s an area that needs players. They need D. So, I’m not convinced that this is going to be a smooth offseason for the Panthers. I think they may have to move out some pieces to create some space.

"And I look at the pieces they’d like to bring back. Mason Marchment, I don’t think he’s going to be too expensive, but that guy, when he came out of the lineup for the Panthers, I thought it sure changed for them in the playoffs. I thought he was awesome.

"And the biggest thing is they’ve got to have a better power play. We’ve seen this right? The power play was terrible in the playoffs; they couldn’t score. Probably a reason why MacKenzie and Samuelsson left, I’m guessing, so that’s obviously an area for concern.

"But I don’t see how they run it back with three players on those big contracts. And I don’t how you get rid of Bobrovsky’s, because that’s the one you’d look to get rid of.”

Frank Seravalli: “Yeah, I was going to say, let me throw my hot-take mitt on for a second, and ask you this question? Would you consider trading Spencer Knight, given that he’s such a valuable piece, and that you probably won’t be able to trade Bobrovsky, if you’re trying to make your team better while Bobrovsky’s locked in for the next number of years?”

Mike McKenna: “It’s a catch-22, but no, I wouldn’t trade Spencer Knight. My reasoning for that, and I talked about it yesterday: Nobody’s won a Stanley Cup in forever without homegrown talent. You need young goaltenders who you can have, who can develop within, who you can be there for 10 years, who are going to win you a Cup. If you got to get creative with Bobrovsky’s deal down the road, you got to do that somehow, but I would be very hesitant to get rid of Spencer Knight.”

You can watch the full episode here…