Florida Panthers: The Next Direction Headed

As the season is winding down, and as the Cats playoff chances are coming to an end, we look at where the Florida Panthers will need to move, come the summer and the start of next year.

This season has honestly been a nightmare in many cases. A boat load of injuries which sidelined Jonathan Huberdeau for five months, Aleksander Barkov for one month, Nick Bjugstad on and off for a couple of months, and Alex Petrovic for a month, has honestly been devastating to watch. The other incident being the firing of Gerald Gallant, early in the season, leaving Tom Rowe to step down from his duties and to coach this team.

After coming off the franchise’s best year, we honestly didn’t expect any of these failings to happen. We expected for our Panthers to continue with their winning success, with playoffs being in reach once again. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, and will not happen this year. Below, I have analyze what the Florida Panthers must do during the off-season, in order to re-bounce from this season.

What’s the next direction for the Cats?

The next direction for the Florida Panthers would be to hire a new coach first. Without any questions asked, a new coach is needed, in order to get the best out of the group of players that we currently have. As much as I appreciate Tom Rowe for stepping down and giving coaching this team a chance, he’s just not the right guy for the job. We need a coach that will work for the players, and who will support them no matter what situation we may be in.

As I spoke about in my other article, I discussed other possible head coaching candidates who the Cats should target. I specifically outlined who I wanted as our next coach as well. In this case, my choice would be Ken Hitchcock. Not only does Ken have a history of winning, he also “knows” how to coach defense. One of our biggest problems that we have faced this year, has been defense. As we all know, ownership spent a lot of money on defensive core (Yandle, Demers etc.), but we haven’t seen it pay off as of yet.

With a new coach (Ken hopefully) bringing in new/fresh ideas, it seems that the team would re-gel quickly, as they once did with Gallant. Having good chemistry often brings teams far into the playoffs, and makes for a fun team to both be around and watch. The Panthers need to bring that  back “fun” into the locker room, in order to achieve the results we once achieved last season. No team thrives in a “dead” or “nervous” locker room environment. It’s not a place the players will want to play in or be around. Bringing Ken will not only fix our flaws both on special teams (power play mostly), and the defensive core, but will also bring that enjoyment back into the locker room.

Next: Who Should The Florida Panthers Target As Their Next Coach?

Off-season and the draft

After hiring a coach, the Panthers must evaluate what areas they will need to add towards. Personally speaking, I truly believe that the Cats should add a couple more bottom six forwards to the lineup, and at most, a defensive defenseman. More so on the offensive side, if we can re-sign Thomas Vanek short-term, to less money, I’m all for having him back here. Vanek has shown his ability to score here in the NHL, and would be a big boost for our third line.

After re-signing Vanek, or grabbing two other forwards to add to the bottom six, I’d go out and purchase another defensive defenseman. Yes, our defensive core is strong and deep, but we could balance it out between our offensive d-men and our defensive d-men. As we all know, the expansion draft is happening this summer. The Panthers will lose a player, and will most likely lose a defenseman. That defenseman will likely be Alex Petrovic, who will be the odd man out unfortunately. If this scenario happens, we must look towards future replacement’s for him. Signing another defensive defenseman cheap, wouldn’t be a bad idea. The idea of bringing up McChosen or Weegar wouldn’t hurt either. All depends if they are ready.

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With the draft heading our way, it looks as if we are going to be drafting higher than expected. We are currently just out of the bottom ten, which would possibly fetch us a top 10 draft pick. At this point of our rebuild stage, I think it’s safe to say that we should trade the pick. The Panthers have lots of young prospects in the minor and junior leagues, and trading this pick for a proven scorer wouldn’t hurt either. We own an abundance of draft picks, and giving up one for one year wouldn’t hurt either. In order to land a scorer, you must part from your assets. In this case, parting with our first round pick will have to be the way. Their is honestly nothing wrong with this. We own all our first round picks after this year, and this years draft itself is weak.

Conclusion

I want to conclude this article by saying how disappointed I am in the results that have been shown all year-long from this team. It seems nothing could have gone right for our boys, as they couldn’t buy any luck. Especially with the injury situation.

As the season is coming to an end, it’s good to reflect on what went wrong. With a season like this, there are also some positive points to be taken out of this. Not everything went wrong this year, and their were glimpse of the Panthers from last year, in some of their play. As I said above, a new coach with a new system/direction, a couple of forwards to fill out the bottom six, and a defensive d-men to add balance and to replace Petrovic, in case he get’s picked up by Vegas.

All in all Panther fans, this season was tough, rough, and depressing, but a good team will learn and know how to rebound harder the next year, and put this season in the past.