Florida Panthers Made the Right Choice Releasing Troy Brouwer From PTO

The Florida Panthers made the right choice releasing forward Troy Brouwer from his PTO.

Yesterday, on Wednesday, September 25, the Florida Panthers announced they were parting ways from forward Troy Brouwer – who was on a PTO contract.

The 34-year-old from Vancouver, British Columbia, had finished the 2018-19 campaign with the Panthers, participating in 75 games and recording 12G, 9A, for 21 points while playing on the team’s fourth line.

After taking part in the Panthers’ preseason on a tryout basis, Brouwer failed to convince management for a spot on the opening night roster. More importantly, though, he wasn’t able to provide enough that would last him for the remainder of the preseason.

Given his age, Brouwer has only been on the decline for the last several seasons, which was evident by his play in the few exhibition games he took part in.

At this stage of his career, Brouwer is just too slow to keep up with today’s speed in the NHL. As well, he doesn’t own the skillset that is necessary to compete with other bottom-six players.

Yes, he does bring some much-needed experience that all teams need to navigate their way into the playoffs and beyond, but the Panthers already have that experience on their roster and aren’t short on it, either. What would an extra veteran do on a roster that already has at least five?

The most important factor that played into this decision has to be the youngsters’ readiness. The minute that camp and preseason started, the younger players who were battling for bottom-six spots came prepared to fight, knowing that there were others fighting to take their place.

Brouwer was precisely given a PTO for this reason, which was to provide healthy competition in camp and in preseason play to push the younger players to perform better and to work harder.

It ended up resulting in exactly that, which Joel Quenneville and Dale Tallon were both hoping for. You could see out on the ice that players like Denis Malgin, Jayce Hawryluk, Owen Tippett, and Anthony Greco (although not too young, but certainly not old) were all physically and mentally prepared to be pushed and to go that extra mile.

You could even make the argument that it even pushed Henrik Borgstrom too (whose spot is almost always guaranteed at this point), who took the summer to beef up and add some necessary muscle to his build.

At this point, I’d say that it was the youngsters who beat out Brouwer for a spot, rather than his physical decline getting in the way.

Had the youngsters not been ready to take the next step, Brouwer would’ve been back for another year. However, because that isn’t the case, it shows how much bottom-six depth the Panthers have up front, pushing the older guys out of their spots.

This signals a new era in Panthers hockey, where the younger guys are starting to take over for the older cast who originally made up significant portions of the bottom six.

As the Florida Panthers prepare to push towards a playoffs spot this season, they look to do it comprised of younger, more talented players, with a blend of talented experience on the side.