Before Tallon, Panthers Prospect Cupboard Almost Bare

If you head out to the-rink-formerly-known-as-Incredible-Ice this week for Panthers rookie practices and games, file away most of the names in the long-term memory portion of your brain. With a few notable exceptions, most of the guys on the ice this week are years away from making an impact on the big club. Goalie Jacob Markstrom will have the best shot as he will be an injury or a traded Tomas Vokoun away from his NHL debut.  Third overall pick Erik Gudbranson has an outside chance to make the club with a strong camp but signs point to him being back in Kingston in the Ontario Hockey League when the season starts.

How does this happen? How does a team that perennially picks in the upper half of the draft not have a stable of young guys ready to make a name for themselves at the NHL level?  It speaks loudly of how mismanaged player personnel has been and why the Panthers will probably end up out of the playoffs for a tenth consecutive season.  When you’re a team on a budget that can’t afford top-tier free agents, you can’t miss with your young players.  The Panthers have done exactly that for the better part of a decade.

In their annual yearbook, The Hockey News ranked the top 10 prospects of every club.  Four of the Panthers top ten were drafted by Dale Tallon in June, the most of any club. Two of the names on the list from previous regimes, Michal Repik and Keaton Ellerby, have already played for the Panthers with minimal success.  Both are talented but, the clock for them making an impact in Sunrise is ticking.  Evgeny Dadonov, who didn’t make the list, is highly regarded but is on record as saying he’ll go back to Russia if he’s not guaranteed a spot on the big club.  But it doesn’t speak well when one draft is credited with providing most of your best prospects.

First line forwards David Booth, Stephen Weiss and Michael Frolik are homegrown but many will tell you they would be second liners at best just about anywhere else in the league, as they stand now.  To be fair, Frolik and Booth may not have hit their talent ceiling yet but it’s unlikely Weiss will get any better.  Rostislav Olesz was drafted with the expectation of possibly being a top six forward.  He has been little more than a porcelain player who is a model of inconsistency and underachievement with an albatross of a contract. (Thanks for that, Jacques!)

Other than Markstrom, the bright spots of past general managers appear to be blueliners Dmitry Kulikov and Jason Garrison.  Kulikov made the team last season out of camp as an 18 year old and drew praise despite missing a stretch of games to knee injury.  Garrison, at 25 a bit older than most prospects, impressed the team enough last season to earn a two year contract extension in July. Both are expected to full time starters this year, with Kulikov expected to be a top 4 defenseman.

Other than that, this team is made up of guys being asked to play above their talent, or free agents that weren’t really coveted by other teams.  Even with players of value who were traded (Luongo and Bouwmeester), the club failed to get the return in prospects that they probably should have. Bryan Allen is all that remains from both trades. With moves like that, it’s little wonder the Panthers are in the situation they are in.

Let’s face it, over the course of time, Tallon’s first draft as the brains of the organization may turn out to be as bad as the other drafts in recent years.  Time is a far better judge than any draftnik and nothing is guaranteed.  But his work in Sunrise in just a few months has shown just how poorly it had been run in the previous five years.  Panther fans are putting faith in him to duplicate his draft successes or it will be a long way before those in the hockey world can say Florida Panthers and playoffs in the same sentence without laughing.

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