Why the Florida Panthers Will Exceed Expectations in 2019-20

With the preseason nearly finished, it’s finally time to look forward to hockey in South Florida. This season, the expectations are the highest they’ve been in three years, and it’s time for this bunch to live up to the billing.

The last three seasons of Florida Panthers hockey have been pretty forgettable. After winning the Atlantic Division in 2015-16, the team fired Gerard Gallant after a poor start, fell to shreds, and missed the playoffs by a significant margin of 14 points.

The start of 2017-18 looked to be more of the same under coach Bob Boughner, starting the season poorly, but a late-season surge saw hockey life reborn in Sunrise, just to miss the playoffs by a point.

Last season saw more of the same, another slow start, but other than brief win streaks in November and January, the Panthers were never truly in contention.

Despite two seasons ago missing by just one point, it was last season that almost felt more painful. In that season, Aleksander Barkov broke the franchise record for points, Jonathan Huberdeau had his best season, and Mike Hoffman turned into the goal scorer the Panthers have lacked for almost a decade, and it all went for nothing.

This time around, that same standard will not stand. Aleksander Barkov has said multiple times during camp that last season’s shortcomings will not define this season’s Panthers. For a captain to come out and say this after a career-high season says only one thing, Barkov wants more than just stats.

So, how can a hockey team begin to set the bar higher than they have? Look no further than what Dale Tallon did this off-season.

While some may argue that some of the contracts given were expensive (and they aren’t necessarily wrong, either), the moves look beyond the values of the players and coach.

All but one of this off-season’s transactions have been to the Stanley Cup in the last five years, with Joel Quenneville and Anton Stralman playing in 2015’s six-game set, Brett Connolly winning with the Capitals in 2018, and Noel Acciari on the losing end with the Bruins in 2019.

These aren’t the kinds of players and coaches that are coming to South Florida to get out of the chilly winters of the northeast, these are players that are legitimately hungry to win. For any evidence on whether that’s true, just ask Sergei Bobrovsky, the other off-season transaction.

While Bobrovsky hasn’t even seen the Conference Finals since his rookie season in Philadelphia, Bobrovsky declared that he came to Florida to win a Stanley Cup, and he should be one of the big reasons on why this team has the potential to do so.

For the Panthers to exceed expectations in 2019, there are a few things that need to be done, and I think will be done. Firstly, this team needs to have a solid October to get the ball rolling.

Yes, teams rebound from slow starts (last season’s St. Louis Blues), but for the Panthers, starting strong gives a sense of confidence that I felt the team never had last season.

It didn’t help that Vincent Trocheck, one of the most vocal leaders and top forwards on the team, was injured early into the campaign. Trocheck is someone who always seems to have confidence when playing at his best, and last season both he, and the team, really seemed to not have that.

Another player who is in desperate need for confidence is Aaron Ekblad. Ekblad is coming off another torrid year on the defensive end and hasn’t quite found his mojo in the attacking end either.

Last season, Ekblad wasn’t put into a lot of good positions and didn’t have the greatest mentor coaching him. Under Joel Quenneville, if Ekblad can have some confidence, he can perform.

If Florida might be able to get off to a good start off motivation and confidence alone to start the year, the expectations might become bigger than they were before.

Nine out of 13 games in October see the Panthers matched up against playoff teams from last season, which should be mandatory games to win.

If the Panthers can beat the Lightning, Islanders (especially in Nassau Coliseum, one of the hardest places for teams to play last season, especially if you ask Pittsburgh), Penguins, and Flames within the opening month, there’s a lot of confidence that’s going to form.

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After that, the key is to make sure that the defensive play improves significantly. Personally, I think it will.

Yes, Aaron Ekblad didn’t play well against Montreal, yes one of the Panthers’ teams gave up six goals against Nashville, and the defense may not fix itself until December, but Joel Quenneville is not going to let last year’s play stand.

Finally, I think the Panthers will be a harder team to stop this season on both ends. Defensively, I think Stralman plays a solid this year, I think Mike Matheson cuts down on the turnovers, and Sergei Bobrovsky plays a 2.40 GAA-type season, which may not sound incredible for his standards, but is immense for Panthers’ standards.

Offensively, I think this team gets even better. Brett Connolly has had an incredible pre-season and looks more and more like a solid depth scorer, Vincent Trocheck should be back to full strength, and the rest of the team is just another year older.

Throw in Evgenii Dadonov and Mike Hoffman playing in contract years, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this team score even more goals than last year.

This should be an exciting time for Cats fans. This team looks to be one of the best South Florida may ever field, but the mindset to win truly feels at home.