Panthers, Senators Trade Rumors

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Something may be brewing between the Florida Panthers and the Ottawa Senators. Hockey writer Kirk Luedeke tweeted the following yesterday:

On top of the rumors, last night after the Panthers 4-0 loss to the St. Louis Blues, head coach Kevin Dineen hinted that some changes could be on the way.

“If we can’t get anybody to compete harder than we did tonight, we’ll just stumble along. We’ll get our wins here and there, but we need more participation in those hard parts of the game for us to have success.”

Dineen went on to say, “It’s not about skill for this group anymore, It’s about finding guys who will give us the best effort.”

Dineen was talking about potential minor league call ups which at this point sound like a definite possibility. Whatever it may be, a trade, or some call-ups, it appears the Panthers roster will get a bit of a makeover sometime in the near future.

The Senators rumor is interesting because the rumored trade is the opposite kind of deal that I would expect the Panthers to be making. If the Panthers are gearing up to go into full-fire-sale mode, one would expect the team to trade veterans for young players. This rumor however indicates that the Panthers may be shopping one of their young prospects.

Keep in mind that this is just a rumor, and a not very substantial one at that, so any reading-into of said rumor that I do is just pure speculation. The talk about a projected scoring forward going north makes me think of the following players, Quinton Howden, Vincent Trocheck, and Drew Shore. Would the Panthers really be interested in trading one of their young offensive prospects? I would not think so or at least not unless they get a hell of a lot in return.

The rumor suggests that the Panthers could be looking for a young D/goalie in return. Maybe the front-office has started to worry that their farm system is too forward heavy. Maybe they are getting tired of waiting for Jacob Markstrom to improve, or maybe they are giving up hope that he will ever become a number one goalie. At the very least, it would probably be safe to add another good young goalie to the system as a contingency plan should Markstrom’s development stall.

In terms of almost-NHL-ready defensive prospects, the Panthers have Alex Petrovic and Colby Robak. It is conceivable that the team would like to add some more young defensive talent. The Panthers have not shown much confidence in Petrovic or Robak as it looked like one or both of them would make the roster out of training camp until the team went and signed veterans Ryan Whitney and Tom Gilbert to fill out the defensive corps.

I do not feel very confident that this rumor will actually amount to anything but it is curious that it is not a Panther veteran rumored to be on the move but rather a young player with offensive potential. If I had to guess, I would say we are more likely to see some call-ups before we see a trade. Then again, if we do see some call-ups, what will happen to the players the call-ups displace?

With all the recent developments, I am getting the feeling that something roster related has to be happening soon. What do you think? Do you think we will see a trade or some call-ups? How would you feel about trading one of the Panthers young forwards? Share your thoughts in the comments section below and follow The Rat Trick on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest.