Florida Panthers Free Agent Recap: James Reimer

With the grunt of the big name free agents signed to their new teams, and the dust of the frenzy that is July 1 good and settled, The Rat Trick takes a look back at the moves the Florida Panthers have made thus far.

Maybe the two biggest signings made by the Panthers this offseason were from inside their own organization, locking up two of their better homegrown talent in

But when it comes to bringing in talent in from the outside, nothing topped the signing of goaltender James Reimer to a five year contract, worth a total of $17 million. Last year’s backup Al Montoya was a pending free agent, and before July 1 Florida made a move to bring in his replacement, Reto Berra in a trade involving Rocco Grimaldi.

While Reimer is certainly an upgrade over Berra, having those two along with Roberto Luongo created quite the crowd in a net that can hold only one at a time.

Things were made a little more clear when it was reported that the 37 year old Luongo wouldn’t be ready for the start of the season after enduring hip surgery, making the Panthers’ likely opening night goaltending duo Reimer and Berra.

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At 28 years old and with some starting experience, it is expected that Florida brought in Reimer to be Luongo’s heir apparent and, in the meantime, when he returns, lighten the load off their aging veteran.

Luongo has plenty of miles on his tires, playing in 60 games on six different occasions – four of which he topped 70 games played. His 926 games played is sixth all time among those at his position, and no other active goaltender is within 200 of him (Henrik Lundqvist, 685, is the closest). Taking some stress off of Luongo was obviously a top priority, and Reimer is set to become that relief.

The 28 year old Reimer himself has yet to take the reigns as a true number one starter, never playing in more than 36 games throughout his career. He was responsible for backstopping the Toronto Maple Leaf’s lone playoff performance since the lockout.

Ultimately, as opposed to making Reimer ‘the guy’, they opted to go after Jonathan Bernier, a backup for Los Angeles Kings and anoint him as the ‘franchise goalie’. Despite that, Reimer remained the scapegoat at times, despite actually putting up decent numbers in limited time and limited talent in front of him.

Over the last three years of all the goalies who played at least 4,000 minutes at 5-on-5 even strength, no one faced more shots-per-60 minutes played than Reimer, taking on a 33.94-per-60 mark. He also had the third lowest goal support, as Toronto only scored 1.87 goals-per-60 minutes played at even strength.

His even strength save percentage (SV%) was middle-of-the-pack, but it was higher than Bernier’s and other goaltenders such as Pekka Rinne, Mike Smith, Jaroslav Halak, and Ryan Miller.

It wasn’t the most obvious match heading into the free agency period, but now that it has all played out, it could turn out to be a perfect for the Panthers and Reimer. We saw Reimer put up much better numbers (in a small sample size), once he got in a better situation with the San Jose Sharks (1.62 GAA and .938 SV% in 8 games). With the additions of Mark Pysyk, Keith Yandle, and Jason Demers to a defensive group that already included Aaron Ekblad, Reimer will again be playing in front of a strong group that he didn’t get with Toronto.