How aggressive will the Florida Panthers be?
Fourth Period’s Dave Pagnotta joined Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Steve Kouleas and Nate Thompson on Wednesday. He was asked about the Florida Panthers’ plans and what they plan to add at the deadline.
NHLRumors.com Transcripts
Steve Kouleas: “With Dave Pagnotta, Sirius best? the Florida plan?”
Dave Pagnotta: “Yeah, well, they’re going to get Tkachuk back on this road trip that just started (Tuesday), they lost to Toronto. They got the Habs (Thursday night, and they lost).
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But all indications are that Matthew Tkachuk will be back in the lineup before the Panthers return to home ice in just over a week and a half. With him back and where their cap situation is, with all the LTIR cap space and all, they’ll have plenty of room to get them there, to be cap compliant, to have him in the lineup, but that only leaves them a little bit of room.
They can do a little bit of juggling and move some guys to the AHL. Guys exempt from waivers will have the flexibility to add more than $2 million in cap space in that regard. I think they’re going to look. Word is it’s starting to trickle through the league that he, Bill Zito, I should say, is starting to lurk a bit.
He’s just starting to understand his options, him and the staff to see what’s out there. And if they can add a few low points. One, presumably on the back end, before the trade deadline, not necessarily the Olympic Break, but if they can make one or two depth additions, it wouldn’t shock many people if they do.
Now, of course, you have to meet the demands in the playoffs regardless of which roster is put on the ice, and Barkov’s timeline is Conference Final-sque. If it escalates and improves, it might be round two. So they still have a lot of runway before they worry about that. But it sounds like they’re starting to look around to see what depth options might be available to them before the trade deadline.
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It wouldn’t surprise people if Bill Zito swings for an impact move again, this time more likely in depth, but it wouldn’t surprise people if he could pull something off.
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