Unbelievable trade: another prospective player has been signed by the Florida Panthers.
Las Vegas: Although general manager Bill Zito expressed doubts about the Florida Panthers’ ability to retain both forward Sam Reinhart and defender Brandon Montour due to the NHL salary cap, the team is hopeful about Reinhart’s ability to sign again.
Monday at 12:00 ET, 11 Panthers players, including Reinhart and Montour, will be eligible to sign free agents. The Panthers won their first championship one week ago when they defeated the Edmonton Oilers 2-1 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Zito declared prior to Friday’s first round of the 2024 Upper Deck NHL Draft at Sphere, “We’ll do our thing and what happens, happens.” “I believe we have a really strong core, and I hope we can continue to include as many guys as they want to.”
Reinhart is a part of that. In 82 regular-season games last season, the 28-year-old set NHL career highs with 94 points and 57 goals, finishing second in the league in goals behind Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews (69). With 27 power play goals, he led the NHL and tied for second with 11 game-winning goals.
Reinhart helped the Panthers win the Stanley Cup with 16 points (10 goals, 6 assists) in 24 playoff games, including the game-winning goal in Game 7 against the Oilers.
“We really hope to have him back, and we’re trying to keep as many of the guys as we can,” Zito stated. “I won’t say anything else.” “Well, I’m hopeful; we’ll see.”
However, Zito had other thoughts on Montour. The 30-year-old missed the first 16 games of the regular season while recovering from off-season shoulder surgery, but he still managed 33 points (eight goals, 25 assists) and led Florida in ice time average of 23:27 in 66 games. In 24 playoff games, Montour averaged 22:40 minutes of ice time and finished with 11 points (three goals, eight assists).
The Panthers can retain Reinhart and Montour, according to Zito, but he wasn’t sure if it would work out.
He added, “I’m grateful that men succeed because they should be compensated and given bigger and better opportunities.”
Along with forwards Vladimir Tarasenko, Nick Cousins, Ryan Lomberg, Steven Lorentz, Kyle Okposo, and Kevin Stenlund, defensemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Dmitry Kulikov, and backup goalkeeper Anthony Stolarz are all on the Panthers’ list of possible unrestricted free agents.
Although Zito recognized he has limited space under the $88 million salary ceiling for the upcoming season, he intends to keep as much of the Cup-winning group together as possible.
He declared, “We’re going to spend to the cap.” You want this, but I don’t have it and I can’t make it, so I’m going to spend it all. Although it may be more difficult and frustrating, there isn’t much you can do.
The draft, which begins with Rounds 2–7 on Saturday (11 a.m. ET; ESPN+, NHLN, SN, TVAS), is expected to begin quietly in Florida. After dealing their first-round pick (No. 32) to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for forward Claude Giroux in 2022 and their second-round pick (No. 65) to the Arizona Coyotes (now Utah Hockey Club) in 2021, the Panthers are without a pick in the first two rounds.
Following that, management will travel back home on Sunday to attend the team’s victory parade in Fort Lauderdale before conducting business on Monday in the UFA market. Zito claimed that since the Panthers’ Cup victory on Monday, the days had been “crazy.”
“I joked with someone that I felt like a wedding planner, where you’re just trying to make sure the players get the best experience possible by making sure whatever comes next is as good as it can be and putting out fires that you never even imagined existed,” he said. We’ve had a hectic week. There is very little time to try to sign players and then get ready for free agency.
Zito has only witnessed a small portion of the Panthers’ Cup celebrations on social media, as he has been too busy to keep up with everything.
In South Florida, Broward County, people are losing their marbles because it’s their first time seeing it and it’s so magnificent and gorgeous that it has that vibe. It’s extremely exciting and fascinating to witness the Cup in these different settings, he said. “It appears to be just a piece of silver, but it’s not.” It has been a lot of fun. That’s been very interesting.
“We spent a few hours having a coaches’ supper. I believe the players took a snooze. And the boats began to arrive on the [Florida Intracoastal Waterway] once they realized we were there. As they were talking on the radio and making their way back, they heard a boat parade approaching. It was quite cool at the time. It was something unique.
