Florida Panthers Need to Rebuild Their Defense Core

After a long season filled with lots of defensive mishaps, the Florida Panthers desperately need to rebuild their defense core over the summer.

Heading into the 2019-20 season, the Florida Panthers cannot start with a Yandle–Ekblad pairing. The two must be driving play on their own respective pairings.

With that being the case, the Panthers essentially need two, top-four pairing defensemen who can step into the lineup immediately and make a sudden impact. Draft picks and/or overseas signings won’t do the trick in this situation.

There are two routes the Cats can go to address their top four concerns at the back: 1). scope out the UFA market and see if you can bring in an experienced defenseman who can play alongside Aaron Ekblad (ex. Anton Stralman).

2). You can dangle a high-coveted asset (like Hoffman) to a team that has a surplus of defensemen (like Nashville and Carolina) that are in need of some scoring help in their top six.

There’s no reason why Hoffman can’t fetch a legit, top-four defenseman, especially after his 36-goal season.

In terms of Mike Matheson and what to do with him next season, you could realistically start him on the top pair with Ekblad. But after his poor performance this past season, would placing him on the top pair even make sense?

With Yandle taking the second pair spot without hesitation, that would only leave Matheson with a left-handed spot on the bottom pair. Perhaps starting the year off on the bottom line would do him some wonders, seeing he wasn’t exactly high on confidence to start and end the season.

Mark Pysyk, on the other hand – who played the majority of the season on the second pair – needs to be dealt at all costs. The “Pysyk experiment,” as some referred to it as, needs to officially come to an end.

As solid as Pysyk may be in a bottom pairing role, he just doesn’t cut it in a top-four position and would be better off in a new environment.

Luckily for the Panthers, Pysyk has some value left in him and there are teams around the league that could offer a third, maybe even a second-round pick in exchange for his services.

Either way, if the Panthers are serious about upgrading that spot in their top four at the back, they need to deal Pysyk and replace him with a better option who can step in and play right away.

Heading into the offseason, here’s how the defense lines up. An “X” marks an open spot that needs to be filled in and replaced.

X – Ekblad

Yandle – X

Matheson – Weegar

So, this is essentially what you have. By no means is what you see here on screen bad, but nor it good enough to compete for the Stanley Cup.

As I mentioned earlier, you have to split Yandle and Ekblad heading into the new season. You just can’t have two offensive-minded defensemen on the same line together.

Bringing in two competent, top-four pairing defensemen to pair with Ekblad and Yandle is the ideal scenario to ensure that both are operating at full capacity.

Whether that means trading a guy like Hoffman or even packaging Pysyk with a couple of picks or a prospect, you do whatever it takes to acquire those two players who you would play next to the aforementioned two.