There have been few more disappointing NHL teams than the Panthers in the first half of the 2022-23 season.
At least as far as a drop-off from last year.
But I wonder if we’re seeing some signs of life as the calendar has flipped to 2023, with the club going 5-2-1 in its past eight games.
The Panthers, as of Wednesday morning, sit three points out of a playoff spot, although they have played three more games than the Penguins, who currently hold that final wild-card spot. There’s also the Islanders sitting ahead of them, also three points ahead, ninth in the conference.
But the Panthers absolutely believe they’ve still got a shot at the playoffs.
“I don’t think there’s anyone around our team that thinks anything else,” Panthers general manager Bill Zito said. The Athletic on Tuesday.
Every game for a while now has felt like the season is on the line. Last season’s Presidents’ Trophy winners have been trying to dig out of a hole almost all season.
“We are focused, we are diligently approaching each game,” Zito said. “It’s almost like every game is a playoff game. The energy is similar.”
Paul Maurice on the Panthers bench (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
It’s a tightrope. Given the hole dug in the first half of the season, there’s little wiggle room the rest of the way — plus there’s the added grenade of Montreal owning Florida’s first-round pick, courtesy of the Ben Chiarot trade a year ago, when the first- place team went all-in at the trade deadline.
Now it’s a different story. It’s survival hockey. The Panthers are going to need a good heater at some point in the second half and probably some help from above them in the standings.
But the GM feels like his team is ramping back.
“You know how sometimes you have the pulse of the room and look at the effort on the ice — the feeling is back,” Zito said. “If you want to point to an example of why I have resolved, if you look at the game in Colorado where we were up, we gave back the lead, and it ends up 4-4 and all of a sudden, we come back and find a way to win (5-4).
“Those are the type of things that we need to do as a team that we’re starting to do.”
Zito said this before his team blew a 4-2 lead in Toronto on Tuesday night, losing 5-4 in overtime, but that was still three out of four points in a back-to-back situation, which began with a 4-2. win Monday in Buffalo.
The results of late reflect what the underlying numbers were mostly saying previously, that the team has played well in some areas without getting rewarded for it.
Zito won’t come out and say this, but I will: It’s also pretty obvious, as well, that if the team had gotten a few more saves this season, things would be different. Sergei Bobrovsky’s .897 save percentage is 36th in the NHL. He had a .913 save percentage last season. Spencer Knight is a bit better at .906 — 27th in the league.
And sure, the coaching change and system changes have affected overall defensive play as the team adjusts to Paul Maurice’s style, which would affect the goalies, too, but overall, it’s very simple: The Panthers need more saves.
“There’s been adjustments for everybody, and I think Bob has been one of them,” Zito said of Bobrovsky, who has three more seasons on his contract at a $10 million average annual value, a deal the GM inherited. “He’s also kept us in so many of the games and recently has really upped his game to the next level. The highlight for me recently was in Detroit, when we were just OK and he was really, really solid. You could just see him rounding into form. …
“We still have faith and believe in those two guys.”
Speaking of Maurice, there’s no question some will look at that coaching change from last summer, where Zito surprised a lot of people in not bringing back Jack Adams finalist Andrew Brunette and instead replacing him with the longtime Winnipeg Jets coach.
I think it’s clear that after being knocked out by Tampa Bay again in the playoffs, the GM felt he needed a more veteran coach who would have his team play a style of hockey conducive to playoff success.
But with the team having the struggles it has this season, it’s also understandable why people would question the coaching change in hindsight.
“I think he’s done a great job,” Zito said of Maurice.
“Look, it’s a self-serving analysis, right? But it’s also real. You look at where we are and how our team is playing. You throw in the injuries, the bad luck. And it all sounds like a big excuse, but it really happened…”
And again, some of the analytics seem to support the notion that this team is playing better than its record. So let’s see if those things even out in the second half.
At this moment, it puts the Panthers in no man’s land as they approach the March 3 trade deadline. They can’t commit yet to being buyers or sellers. It’s wait-and-see for the next six weeks, depending on how the team plays.
“Yeah, you don’t know,” Zito said. “And, as you well know, you never know when the phone call is going to come that you hadn’t anticipated.”
Zito has been unafraid to make trades since he took over as GM, so who knows what he has up his sleeve before March 3.
“I’m always open to anything,” Zito said. “The definition of my job is that you have to consider everything.
“But I do like our team. I believe in our team. … I really do.”
And while it would be easy to look at last summer’s blockbuster trade with Calgary — Jonathan Huberdeau and Mackenzie Weegar to the Flames for Matthew Tkachuk — as a deal that somehow affected Florida’s mojo, all Tkachuk has done is come in and light it up: eighth. in NHL scoring as of Wednesday morning, with 56 points (22 goals) in 43 games.
Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov (Dan Hamilton / USA Today)
“He’s been tremendous,” Zito said. “His on-ice contributions have been significant, and there’s so many other little things that Matthew does. He won’t quit. Competing the whole time. There’s a lot of areas of our game that he provokes and pulls all of our players in addition to the skill and the points.
“And good person, great guy. Everyone likes him. So we’re happy to have him.”
I think part of why the deal made sense for Zito, beyond Tkachuk’s long-term on-ice impact, was also that the team’s salary-cap congestion clears up after this season. He’ll be able to plug a hole or two then.
There’s $6.5 million in dead-cap money on the Panthers’ books this season from buyouts for Keith Yandle ($5.4 million) and Scott Darling ($1.1 million). That goes down to $1.2 million next season for Yandle, and Darling will be off the books. Patric Hornqvist is a pending UFA, and his $5.3 million AAV will come off the books. There are other things to look at, too, but just between those situations, there’s north of $10 million coming off the cap.
This was always going to be the season where the Panthers had to navigate an incredibly tight cap.
“We knew at the end of last season we were going to have north of $7 million between the buyouts and bonuses that we got charged for from the young guys last year. We knew that would be a handcuff,” Zito said. “With that said, we should still be a little higher in the standings, right? So there are other factors. But it’s a real thing. And this summer we’ll have that cleaned up. Yeah, we should be able to move forward and take advantage of that.”
But that’s next season.
There’s unfinished work now. Can the Panthers rally and scrape their way in? That’s going to be a compelling storyline the rest of the way.
(Top photo of Matthew Tkachuk and teammates: Steven Bisig / USA Today)
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