Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Hyde: Panthers our next hope
LeBron. Wade. Bosh. The Big Three. The two rings. The four NBA Finals.
It’s all a thing of the past, as we all unfortunately know, drifting behind us further each year like the ’72 Dolphins. Done. Gone.
Au revoir.
Or should I say: Proshay.
That’s Russian for goodbye, and
I’m boning up on my Russian, because the next chance for a great team is about to arrive in South Florida with a Russian accent and you’ll want to be ready.
Like so many big things in sports, it begins quietly. General manager Dale Tallon sits in an empty room at the Florida Panthers practice center and says quietly, “I think we’re going to do whatever it takes.”
(I’ll pause here for most of you to roll your eyes at this and say, “Really? The Panthers? You’re not going to fall for them saying it’s their year again, are you?”)
This is the summer everything changes for the Panthers, including the storyline I’ve written into the ice the last couple decades of them being a clown franchise. Which they have been.
Tallon was undercut and exiled by ownership when things were building a couple of summers back. It took a while to restore order even after Tallon was restored to power.
Now they’re ready to win like they never have — like the Dolphins, Marlins and Heat can’t right now.
“From here on in, we want to get in the playoffs all the time, so our players get accustomed to it, get a feel for it,’’ Tallon says. “So they can see why they’re making their sacrifices.”
For your benefit, let’s lay out the reason everything changes now.
Money? The Panthers have $22 million to spend after dumping salary in trades last season and will spend to the projected $83 million salary cap.
Momentum? They just hired Joel Quenneville, who was the hottest coach on the market. He doesn’t come without seeing a good nucleus (Alexander Barkov, Vinny Trocheck …) and having a good plan to improve this summer.
Holes? They have some obvious ones. And that’s why when the St. Louis Blues finish drinking from the Stanley Cup in the next week, the Panthers are going to be the story of hockey.
(I’ll pause here again for a chuckle at the Panthers as the, “story of hockey.” It even sounds funny to write considering their yesterdays. But keep up …)
It will start June 23 with the “free-agent courting” period — hockey, so quaint, has teams “court” free agents — followed by the signing July 1.
The top free-agent target is goalie Sergie Bobrovsky and, behind him, winger Artemi Panarin. Each played with Columbus last year. Each is Russian. Each is a star.
Somewhere in all this, or perhaps before the season, the Panthers will make a deal for a veteran defenseman to inject some sense into their talented defense. Tallon won’t discuss names, project plans or predict what’s coming. He has plans and counter-plans, but the idea is something big.
“This is the right time,’’ he said. “[Owner Vinny Viola’s] commitment, the hiring of the coach and the players we already have in the system and on our team — we’re ready. We all are unanimous in what we need to improve and we’re in position to do the right thing.”
Sure, nothing’s certain. Tallon knows — in Chicago, he put more money on the table for some free agents and got turned down because they didn’t think the team was serious about winning. That could be a problem for the Panthers.
They’ve made two playoffs in 17 years. They haven’t won a playoff series since the magical hockey year of 1996. They’ve been the surest thing in sports, in that losing regard, this millennium.
Now everything points to that changing. Tallon sits in an empty room and says, “If we have a good couple of weeks, we’ll be fine.”
You can roll your eyes. But be ready to rub them coming up.