Strengths
Often times, the strengths of the Florida Panthers are few and far between. This season, the strengths are in plenty and they’re in all position groups.
One of the biggest strength for this year’s Panthers will be their top-six scoring. Gone are the days of Aleksander Barkov and Vincent Trocheck playing with the likes of Seth Griffith, Michael Sgarbossa, or any of the other forwards who frankly don’t deserve to be in the top-six.
During the offseason, Dale Tallon brought in winger Mike Hoffman, a winger whose floor is 20 goals almost any season. Last year, Hoffman scored 22 goals playing alongside Matt Duchene and Colin White. While Duchene is a talented player, he is nowhere near the talent of Aleksander Barkov and Vincent Trocheck, one of which will benefit from Hoffman’s scoring ability.
The Panthers also possess additional scoring threats with Evgeni Dadonov, Nick Bjugstad, and Jonathan Huberdeau. The trio combined for 74 goals and all of them had career highs in goals and points. Adding Hoffman and these three next to Barkov and Trocheck should cause nightmares for opposing defenders.
Another strength for the Panthers will be their goaltending depth. While the concerns are there with Roberto Luongo and James Reimer, both are quality goaltenders who can hold their own in NHL games.
Last season, depth in net for the Panthers was also a strength. When the Panthers lost Luongo and Reimer for an extended period of time, the Cats relied on Harri Sateri to fill the hole in goal. Sateri impressed in his 9 games, which included a 4-game stretch where he went 4-0-0 and allowed just 6 goals.
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With Sateri moving to the Detroit Red Wings, the Panthers signed Michael Hutchinson from the Winnipeg Jets to fill Sateri’s role. In the AHL last season, Hutchinson finished with a 17-5-4 record, allowing just 2.08 goals per game. Despite only playing 102 games over 5 NHL seasons, Hutchinson is a viable option to fill in if Luongo or Reimer go down with an injury.
The Panthers should also have good forward depth. Last season, the Panthers seemed like a team that was one long-term injury to a star player away from crumbling apart.
This year, the situation seems different. While an injury to Aleksander Barkov would be detrimental to a playoff fight, an injury to the likes of Jonathan Huberdeau or Nick Bjugstad could be aided with quite a few players.
Players like Henrik Borgstrom, Denis Malgin, and Frank Vatrano are all capable of replacing an injury in the top-six with almost ease. The latter of Vatrano (and even Malgin to an extent), both played some minutes in the top-six last season and looked good in the time they played there.
If an injury happens in the bottom-six, players like Jayce Hawryluk or Maxim Mamin (who got playing time last season), could step in and keep the Panthers rolling at a consistent pace. All of this is important for the Panthers as they try to compete for a spot in a crowded Atlantic division.
The Panthers’ penalty kill should also be a strength for the team, much like it has been for a few years now. Last season, the Panthers finished the season killing 80.2% of power plays faced, a figure that ranked in the top half of the NHL (16th overall).
The team also finished with 10 shorthanded goals. While Sasha Barkov was responsible for 5 of those shorthanded goals, the team showed a clear talent in killing penalties.
This season, it seems likely that the forwards tasked with killing penalties will be Aleksander Barkov, Vincent Trocheck, Colton Sceviour, and Jared McCann.
While the last two names aren’t jumping off the paper for a lot of casual fans, both are gritty players who are talented at killing penalties and sticking to their assignments, which is an important task for any player playing on the PK.
It’s pointless to speculate where the Panthers finish at the end of the year, so perhaps, a top-10 finish could easily be seen (barring any major injuries).