Tallon, Panthers, taking it easy
Team confident in current roster makeup
CORAL SPRINGS — The Florida Panthers’ offseason checklist was not a long one, focused more on tweaking a roster that missed the playoffs by one point instead of overhauling it. The goals were fairly simple.
Add an older defensive defenseman. In signing Russian defenseman Bodgan Kiselevich last month, the Panthers added a 28-year-old shutdown defenseman. Check.
Add a scoring winger. In trading for controversial Mike Hoffman almost two weeks ago, the Panthers acquired a winger with at least 22 goals in each of the last four seasons. Check.
Add a third goaltender. The Panthers did not re-sign Harri Sateri, opening a hole that Michael Hutchinson stepped into during the first day of NHL free agency on Sunday. Check.
Panthers general manager Dale Tallon said Florida did its work a month ago, ushering in a fairly stress-free Sunday.
“Quite frankly, I was more relaxed today than I have been in a long time on July 1st,” Tallon said. “Usually, it’s nerve-wracking because you have to pay a lot of money on July 1st to get good players. We’re still going to sit back and evaluate and see where we’re at moving forward. We still have a couple contracts to get out of the way, and then we’ll see what happens in August.
“If we need something, we’ll see what’s available and go from there. But I’m confident in our young team. I’m confident in our depth chart. I’m confident in our young players. I’m confident we have guys in our
system that can come up and play valuable minutes for us.”
The Panthers still have two restricted free agents to sign in defensemen Alexander Petrovic and MacKenzie Weegar. They already inked RFAs Frank Vatrano (one year, $925,000) and Jared McCann (two years, $2.5 million) to contracts.
Florida did not use the buyout window to shed contracts and will enter the 2018-19 season with largely the same roster as the year before, led by the young core of Aleksander Barkov, Vincent Trocheck, Jonathan Huberdeau, Aaron Ekblad and Mike Matheson.
The Panthers used a strong second half to finish with 96 points, becoming the second team in NHL history to miss the postseason with as many points. Florida started the season 4-8-2 under first-year coach Bob Boughner.
“We had so much instability a few years ago,” Tallon said. “New faces, new players, new coaches. Now, we want to make sure that we let our young guys develop in the proper way that we have a strong core. Coaches are more comfortable with the players and players will be more comfortable with them as well. I look for everyone to get off to a good start, a much better start than we did last year.”
Tallon spoke earlier this summer about adding a veteran defenseman for the Panthers. But they signed bloated contracts Sunday. Jack Johnson signed a fiveyear, $16.25 million contract in Pittsburgh. Ian Cole signed a three-year, $12.75 million contract in Colorado. John Moore signed a five-year, $13.75 million contract with Boston.
Calvin De Haan remains unsigned.
“It always is high on July 1st,” Tallon said. “We were very happy with our young defensemen, learned a lot last year. I think they’ll be better off this year than they were last year at this time. Adding a good, solid, steady defenseman like Bogdan will help as well. We’ve got young guys in the minors that we really like and I think [Ian] McCoshen learned a lot. I think we’re in good shape as far as depth in our roster.”