Panthers Provide a Blueprint for the NHL

Sam Bennett won the Conn Smythe trophy for most valuable player in the NHL playoffs. It was well earned. Bennett led the Florida Panthers with 15 goals and 22 points in 23 postseason games. He was by far the most consistent player for his team, and whether he stays in South Florida or goes elsewhere this summer, he will be richly and justly rewarded with his next contract.

But the one trophy that has yet to be awarded is the Jim Gregory award for top executive of the year. If anyone other than Bill Zito wins it, there oughta be an investigation. The job he has done transforming the Panthers from a middling team into a dynasty should be a blueprint for every general manager in the league, including a certain individual currently employed at 4 Penn Plaza.

Since he was hired in 2020, Zito has signed or traded for Sam Bennett (C) and Matthew Tkachuk (LW) from the Calgary Flames, Sam Reinhart (RW) from the Buffalo Sabres, Carter Verhaeghe (LW) from the Tampa Bay Lightning, Evan Rodrigues (LW) from the Colorado Avalanche, Niko Mikkola (D) from the New York Rangers, Gustav Forsling (D) and Seth Jones (D) from the Chicago Blackhawks, Eetu Luostarinen (LW) from the Carolina Hurricanes, Brad Marchand (RW) and Jesper Boqvist (C) from the Boston Bruins, Tomas Nosek (C) from the New Jersey Devils, and Nate Schmidt (D) and Paul Maurice (coach) from the Winnipeg Jets. In short, more than half of the Stanley Cup winning team came from elsewhere.

In a sport that defines success by how many home-grown players a team has, the Panthers are a text-book example of how to shop wisely. No organization does it better. Just look at their top nine:

Verhaeghe - Alesander Barkov - Reinhart

Rodrigues - Bennett - Tkachuk 

Luostarinen - Anton Lundell - Marchand 

Only Barkov and Lundell were drafted by the Panthers. That's it. Everyone else came from outside the organization.

Zito is not the first GM to build a championship team mostly through trades. In the 1990s, Neil Smith broke a Rangers 54 year Cup drought by importing Adam Graves, Jeff Beukaboom, Mark Messier, Esa Tikkanen, Kevin Lowe, Steve Larmer, Stephan Matteau, Brian Noonan, Craig MacTavish, Glenn Anderson, Doug Lidster and Glenn Healy. What is remarkable is that he's managed to do it in the cap era where general managers routinely pull their hair out trying to field a competitive roster and still stay cap compliant. 

His secret sauce has been the way he's managed the cap. Like Julien BriseBois of the Tampa Bay Lightning before him, Zito has not signed one player to a contract with an AAV higher than $10 million. What this means is that he has the cap space needed to fill out his roster with solid bottom six players while some teams struggle to assemble a top six.

For example, the Panthers cap hit for Barkov, Tkachuk, Reinhart, Verhaeghe and Bobrovsky comes to $45.1 million. The Edmonton Oilers cap hit for just Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid is $26.5 million. There's no doubt that both these players are among the best in the NHL, but you have to ask yourself whether any hockey team can win a Stanley Cup with so much salary tied up in two players. And keep in mind, McDavid will be a UFA after the 2025-26 season. His next contract could well have an AAV of $17 million or higher. Even with the salary cap expected to go up to $104m in 2026 and $113m in 2027, the Oilers might be better off borrowing a page from the Panthers playbook and moving on.

Indeed, five of the last six Stanley Cup winners - the Lightning twice, the Vegas Golden Knights once and the Panthers twice - do not have a single player with an AAV over $10 million. Meanwhile, the team with the most front-loaded roster in the league - the Toronto Maple Leafs - have made it to the second round twice in the last eight seasons. That cannot be a coincidence.

What it tells us is that having the best player in a series is no guarantee of success. Indeed, it's almost a curse. If I were the GM of a team with Cup aspirations, I would emulate what Zito and BriseBois have done with their respective teams. Both have stumbled on to something; something that most fans don't understand. You don't need world-class talent to win in today's NHL. What you need is depth and solid goaltending. The Oilers had neither in these finals, and it showed.

Call me "delusional," or any name you want, but I don't think the hockey fans in South Florida care in the slightest that number 97 doesn't play for their team. They have two Cups, and the last time I checked, that's two more than the Oilers have won in this century.

Come to think of it, it's one more than the Rangers have won since World War II.

Ouch!

Chris Drury's Agonizing Decision.

What do Cam Ward (.920), Chris Osgood (.930), Marc-Andre Fluery (.913), Tim Thomas (.967), Jonathan Quick (.947 & .932), Corey Crawford (.925 & .938), Matt Murray (.920 & .931), Braden Holtby (.916), Jordan Binnington (.912), Andrei Vasilevsky (.911 & .943), Darcy Kuemper (.908) and Adin Hill (.923) all have in common? They all led their respective teams to Stanley Cup championships, and did so while posting a save percentage above .900.

Since the NHL instituted a hard salary cap beginning in the 2005-06 season, only three teams have won the Cup with goaltenders that had sub .900 save percentages: Jean-Sébastien Giguère (.891) for the Anaheim Ducks in 2007, Antti Niemi (.882) for the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010 and Sergei Bobrovsky (.899) for the Florida Panthers in 2024. But if we're being fair, it's really only two. That's because Bobrovsky posted save percentages of 1.000, .947, .914 and .958 in the four games the Panthers won. He literally stole game one. Without him in net, the Edmonton Oilers probably win the series in six.

So what is my point? Basically this: goaltending is as essential to winning the Stanley Cup as pitching is to winning the World Series and special teams are to winning the Super Bowl. Without it, your chances of prevailing are remote at best. The fact is there isn't a sport on this planet that doesn't depend on one team stopping the other from scoring.

Yes, there are exceptions to this rule. I listed two of them above. But you can't tell me with a straight face that the Los Angeles Kings win their two Cups in 2012 & 2014 without Jonathan Quick between the pipes, or that the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning win back-to-back Cups without Matt Murray and Andrei Vasilevsky respectively. Not without having to submit to a breathalyzer test.

Go back as far as you like, even before the cap era. Where would the Montreal Canadiens have been without Ken Dryden? Or the Philadelphia Flyers without Bernie Parent? Or the Islanders without Billy Smith? Or the New Jersey Devils without Marty Brodeur? I omit the Oilers '80s dynasty, because I do believe that team would've won with Doug Soeteart in goal. Imagine having to go back five decades to prove a point. And that point, at least according to the pinheads - some of whom make a living covering this sport and actually think they know something about hockey - is that goaltending is a plug-in-play position. Basically, you can put anybody in there, and if your team is good enough, you'll win.

Oh yeah? Tell that to Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch. His goalie Stuart Skinner should've stopped Sam Reinhart's second-period goal that made it 2-1 Florida. If he makes that save, game seven likely goes to overtime. And then who knows what would've happened. We could be talking about the greatest comeback in NHL history instead of, well, you know. His counterpart - the guy everybody swears is grossly overpaid at $10 million - had no problem coming up with the big saves when his team needed them. In hockey, it's not how many saves you make, but when you make them that counts. With the series on the line and the Cup in the building, Sergei Bobrovsky delivered. The man earned his paycheck. EVERY FUCKING PENNY!

Goaltending is the only position I can think of where scoring an 88 on a test gets you an F. And that's why Chris Drury has an agonizing decision to make. One that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. A year from now, Igor Shesterkin will be a UFA. For those of you who own stock in Depends, now would be a good time to buy some more shares. Trust me, you're gonna need 'em.

There's no polite way to put this. Without Shesterkin, the Rangers are a slightly above average team that isn't close to being a contender. They don't beat the Penguins, much less the Carolina Hurricanes, in 2022. And while they most likely would've beaten the Washington Capitals this year, that series would've gone at least six games. Forget about the Canes. They would've lost in six. The Panthers? Try a four-game sweep. You wanna give the Blueshirts game two at the Garden? Ok, fine, but that's it. The fact is I cannot think of a single team in the league that is more reliant upon its goaltending than the Rangers. It's like Popeye with his spinach.

And that's why unless his agent goes completely bonkers and demands somewhere in the neighborhood of $14-$15 million per year over 8 years, Drury cannot afford to let Igor jump ship. Even if the number is $12 million, unless the Rangers believe Dylan Garand is ready to make the leap from Hartford to the NHL - a HUGE risk, by the way - they sign him to that contract. In fact, they make sure he doesn't leave the building until he signs it. He grew up in Russia; I'm sure he's familiar with being detained. 

Just kidding, I think.

Don't get me wrong. If there's a chance Drury can keep that number at or below $10 million, he should exhaust every effort to do so. But if I had $10 million, or even $12 million, to spend on a goaltender, I'd take Shesterkin over Bobrovsky or Vasilevsky any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. You wanna talk about a team-friendly contract? If the $5.7 million Igor is currently making doesn't constitute highway robbery, I don't know what does. One way or another, the man is going to get paid; the only question is by whom?

Look, I get the economics here. $10 or $12 million is nothing to sneeze at. And with the salary cap expected to go up to $92 million next summer, the ramifications of one player taking up potentially 13 percent of that cap are considerable. But given that Artemi Panarin is making $11.6 million and he hasn't exactly been Guy Lafleur in the postseason, is it really unreasonable to compensate someone who has been, without question, the team's most valuable player the last three years? Like I said, someone is going to pay him.

There will be those who will argue, perhaps with some justification, that it's possible to find elite goaltenders without breaking the bank. Adin Hill, Jake Oettinger and Jeremy Swayman all made less than $5 million and all had exceptional postseasons. I would counter that Hill and Oettinger are a year away from becoming RFAs and Swayman is an RFA right now and looking at a fairly significant pay raise. By the time they get to UFA status, all three will be making five figures, I can assure you. As Howie Rose would say, you can put it in the books.

This is the hard part of being a general manager. Anybody can hire and fire a coach. But fielding a team that is both a contender and cap compliant, now that takes talent. Chris Drury not only has to fix what went wrong this year, he has to do so in a way that guarantees there will still be a reason to go to Madison Square Garden in the 2025-26 season.

I don't envy him the next twelve months.

The More Things Change...

In the end, relentlessness won out over resiliency. The relentless Florida Panthers were simply too much for the resilient New York Rangers to handle. Goodbye 1994 parallels; hello futility.

Going into their series against the Panthers, the Rangers knew they needed to have three things go their way in order to have a shot at advancing to the finals: 1. They needed to play almost flawless hockey; 2. They needed to win the special teams battle; and 3. They needed to have Igor Shresterkin be the best player on the ice. As it turned out, one out of three wasn't nearly good enough.

While stats don't always tell you everything about a series, in this case they did. And the stats were not kind to the Rangers: Overall scoring chances: 191-140 Florida; High-danger scoring chances 55-38 Florida; Power play efficiency: Florida 5-19 (26.3%), New York 1-15 (6.7); Shots on goal: 202-151 Florida. About the only stat the Rangers managed to win was save percentage, where Shesterkin edged out his counterpart Sergei Bobrovsky .930 to .921. Indeed, it was only due to the sheer brilliance of the former Vezina-trophy winner that the games were as close as they were. He stole game three, but he couldn't steal the series.

Given the expectations this team had going into the postseason, this will be a very bitter pill to swallow. For the second time in three years, the Rangers made it to the Eastern Conference Finals only to fall short. There will be a lot of questions that need answers to, but before we get to that, let's first acknowledge the accomplishments, and there were several.

The Rangers won the Presidents' Trophy. They set a franchise record with 55 regular-season wins. They led the NHL with 34 come-from-behind victories. Apart from January, where they went 5-7-2, they were the lead dog pretty much the entire year. Their 154 regular-season wins over the last three seasons is fourth best in the league, while their 54 playoff wins since 2014 is tied with the Dallas Stars for third best. Alexis Lafreniere had a break out year under Peter Laviolette. And though they lost to the Panthers, they can boast that they are better than the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Boston Bruins, and, oh yes, the Carolina Hurricanes, whom they've now beaten two out of the last three years.

That's a list of accomplishments most teams would give their eye teeth to have. Whatever else you might think about how the season went, between the two of them, Jeff Gorton and Chris Drury assembled a team that is no worse than fourth best in the NHL. And if they hadn't had the misfortune of going up against the Panthers in the conference finals, they might very well be opening up this Saturday night at the Garden against the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Finals.

But here's the thing: they did have the misfortune of going up against the Panthers: a team that, pound for pound, was the most complete in the NHL. And let's be honest. For all their elite talent, the Rangers Kryptonite has always been physically imposing teams that take away the middle of the ice. Against the Blueshirts, the Panthers put on a clinic.

So now we get to the number one question: what does Drury do this offseason? Clearly changes will have to be made. The Rangers have three players who are RFAs this summer: Kaapo Kakko, Ryan Lindgren and Braden Schneider. Does Drury re-sign all three? Or does he trade one or more of them? If it's the latter, the likely one to go is Kakko. For all the intangibles the former number two pick in the 2019 NHL Draft brings to the table, the fact is he just hasn't worked out. Even under Laviolette, Kakko remains a bottom six forward. In hindsight, it was a mistake for Drury not to package him at the trade deadline for a proven scorer.

Lindgren and Schneider made $3 million and $925,000 respectively this past season and both are due for a pay raise. Drury can probably bridge Schneider the way he did with K'Andre Miller and Alexis Lafreniere. $2m x 2 should just about do it. But Lindgren will be a little trickier. He's looking at a multi-year deal in the neighborhood of $4.5 million per. Does Drury want to invest that much in a defenseman who might be the second coming of Dan Girardi? If he can keep the term down to three years, the answer might be yes.

When it comes to the UFAs, it's fair to say that Jack Roslovic, Alex Wennberg, Blake Wheeler, and Erik Gustafsson have all played their last game as a Ranger. The former two were rentals and Drury is not known for re-signing rentals; the latter two were signed last summer to one year deals and have outlived their usefulness. With Brennan Othmann in Hartford, Zac Jones, Matt Rempe and Jonny Brodzinski on the bench, and a - hopefully - healthy Filip Chytil, the Rangers should have plenty of options to fill out their bottom six without going outside the organization.

But the real question for Drury concerns the core of this team. This is now the third year in a row that is has failed to deliver in the clutch. Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider were held to two points a piece against the Panthers. Artemi Panarin had a goal and three assists, while Adam Fox had four assists. As for Jacob Trouba, he was on the ice for more than half the Panthers goals. The cap hit for all five of these players comes out to just over $44 million, or roughly 50 percent of next year's salary cap. Only the Maple Leafs (61.6%) have more salary tied up in their top five players.

We now know that Fox re-injured his knee on that collision with Nick Jensen in game four of the Capitals series. That would explain why he was, apart from a couple of games, a non-factor in the second and third rounds. We'll never know how the Rangers power play would've performed if Fox had been 100 percent. However, the fact that it went 2-25 over the team's last 10 playoff games cannot be a coincidence. 

But while Fox may get a mulligan, the other four have no excuse. Zibanejad, in particular, had a very disappointing season, especially at 5v5, where he was one of the worst centers in the league. Panarin had a career high 49 goals during the regular season, but only one over the Rangers last nine playoff games. After recording a hat trick in the series clincher against the Hurricanes, Kreider had just one goal - a shorthander - in six games against the Panthers. And Trouba's performance was so bad, Laviolette was forced to demote him to the third pairing with Gustafsson.

Does Drury really want to run it back next season with this core? A better question might be what choice does he have? Zibanejad and Panarin both have NMC (no-move clause) contracts, meaning they would have to approve any trade. Kreider and Trouba have 15 team NTC (no-trade clause) contracts. The problem with NTCs is that the teams that have the cap space to take on a large contract are typically the ones on the no-trade list, while the teams that aren't on the no-trade list rarely have the cap space to take on said contract.

In other words, barring a miracle, any speculation involving a trade for Brady Trachuk is just that: speculation. With the Rangers having just over $11 million in available cap space and only 18 players signed next season, Drury is going to have to do pretty much what he did last summer: shop at the bargain basement. store. And after the postseason he had, it's unlikely that Barclay Goodrow will be bought out. If anything, the Rangers need more players like him, not fewer. Jake DeBrusk could be just what the doctor ordered, if Drury if he can shed some salary.

Look, I realize things may seem bleak right now. But here's something that should cheer you up. Among the playoff teams in the Eastern Conference that were eliminated, the Rangers are actually best positioned to make a deep run next year. I'm not joking. The Bruins need, not one, but two centers; the Maple Leafs, despite all that top-tier talent, still can't get out of the first round; the Lightning are finally paying the price for manipulating the salary cap all those years; and the Hurricanes will likely lose several key pieces of their team to free agency, plus their goaltending is suspect. Even the Panthers will have to make some tough choices over the summer.

Bottom line: the glass is half full, Rangers fans. Enjoy the summer.

Goody Enough

For sixty minutes, the New York Rangers threw everything they had at the Florida Panthers. They fought tooth and nail for every inch of ice. They scraped, they clawed, they hit and they got hit. They were twice the team they were in game one. And all it got them was a 1-1 tie going into overtime. The Panthers, having won game one at the Garden 3-0, and with it home ice, were playing with house money. A win would give them a stranglehold on the series going back to their home arena. The Rangers were looking at an almost impossible task, one that only one team since 1945 had accomplished: winning a best of seven conference or league final series after dropping the first two games at home.

Barclay Goodrow's snapshot from the slot at 14:01 of OT didn't just win the game for the Rangers, it saved their season. If ever there was a must win situation, last night was it. So now the Presidents' Trophy winners get an opportunity to recapture home ice with a split in Sunrise, Florida. The hockey gods were indeed merciful, for a change.

But while Goodrow's teammates celebrated their good fortune, there is still much work that needs to be done if this team is to advance to the finals for the first time since 2014, and only the second time since their Cup year of 1994. For starters, the special teams have been anything but special of late. After going 11-25 on the power play in their first six postseason games, the Rangers have gone 1-16 over their last six, including 0-4 last night. The Rangers record over those first six games was 6-0; over the last six, it's 3-3.

The concern is palpable. Going into this series with the Panthers, the Rangers had two advantages going for them: their goaltending and their power play. Well, Igor Shesterkin has held up his end of the bargain. The former Vezina Trophy winner has gone toe to toe with Sergei Bobrovsky. Not counting the own goal Alexis Lafreniere deflected past him in game one, Shesterkin has stopped 51 of 53 shots on goal for a .962 save percentage through two games. That's the sort of brilliance that can earn a player the Conn-Smythe Award.

But no matter how brilliant Igor may be, he cannot drag this team across the finish line all by himself. He needs help. Put succinctly, there is no pathway to a Stanley Cup for the Rangers that doesn't include a productive power play. None. Their 5v5 play simply isn't good enough. During the regular season, New York had a GF% of 50.15 at 5v5. By contrast, Florida was 56.57. The fact is the Rangers got lucky last night. They actually outscored the Panthers 2-0 at even strength. Depending on that luck to continue would be foolhardy.

The problem is a familiar one. For all the elite talent on this team, the Rangers power play remains as predictable as dirt. They tried mixing it up a bit against the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes, and, eureka, it worked. But then like a drunk on a bender, the old habits returned. Since game three of the Canes series, the Blueshirts have stubbornly resisted even tweaking their power play. The results - one power play goal in the last six games - speak for themselves. The Panthers know exactly what's coming and they are prepared for it. In the first two games of this series, the Rangers have yet to register a single high-danger scoring chance with the man advantage. If Peter Laviolette and his staff don't rectify this problem soon, game five will be the last home game of the season for this team.

But even if they manage to fix the power play, there's one more nagging issue that besets them. The Rangers continue to have trouble exiting the defensive zone. While not as proficient as game one, Florida was still able to pin New York in its own end most of the game. The lack of clean exits is bound to take its toll as the series progresses, especially the way the Panthers take the body. The Rangers must find a way to get the puck into the neutral zone that doesn't involve multiple hits along the boards. Laviolette was hired because of his ability to make adjustments on the fly. Now would be a good time to make at least two of them.

Game three is Sunday afternoon. The Rangers are tied with the Panthers. They have Barclay Goodrow to thank for that.

Panthers Send Rangers a Wakeup Call

The scoresheet said Florida 1, New York 0 late in the third period. Close game, right? Well, if you were on the ESPN app, maybe. But no one who watched the game live could, if they were being honest, say it was close. Apart from a brief flurry with just over seven minutes left in the game, in which Alexis Lafreniere hit the post, the Panthers played, for all intents and purposes, a flawless road game.

Quite frankly, I was taken aback by the posts I saw on Twitter. The normally critical fanbase was bending over backwards to rationalize what happened at MSG last night. "It's just one game.""They were one play away from tying the score." "No need to panic." "They were rusty." "The Panthers aren't really that good."

I agree with most of the above statements. Yes, it is only one game. Even the '94 team lost game one against the New Jersey Devils in the Conference Finals and game one against the Vancouver Canucks in the Cup Finals before winning in seven. It still takes four games to win a series. Yes, despite being outplayed, they were one play away from tying the score. Yes, I agree, there's no need to panic; Laviolette and his coaching staff will make adjustments. And, finally, they did look rusty, or perhaps tentative would be a better word; that won't be the case in game two, hopefully.

But let's get something straight right now. The Panthers really are this good. They put on a clinic last night. They pinned the Rangers in their own end most of the game and dictated the play. I counted on one hand the number of times the Blueshirts had a clean exit into the neutral zone that wasn't intercepted by the Panthers and dumped back in. The only reason it was still 1-0 halfway through the third period was because Igor Shesterkin made several key saves, especially in the second period where the Rangers went almost 14 minutes without a shot on goal. The normally raucous Garden crowd sounded more like they were attending a funeral than a playoff game, that's how quiet it was.

Consider the following: since losing game one of their last series against the Boston Bruins 5-1, the Panthers have not given up more than two goals per game once. Check out these scores: 6-1 Panthers, 6-2 Panthers, 3-2 Panthers, 2-1 Bruins, 2-1 Panthers and 3-0 Panthers. And lest you think this was all Sergei Bobrovsky's doing, the players in front of him did most of the heavy lifting. The shots on goal against were 15, 17, 18, 28, 23 and 23 respectively. Even Freddie Andersen couldn't have blown those games, though I suspect he would've tried.

This isn't the Carolina Hurricanes the Rangers are playing here. This is the toughest opponent they have faced, quite possibly in years. The Panthers have size and depth throughout their lineup; they can defend as well as any team in the NHL; and they have a world-class goalie in net just in case they make a mistake. Beating them will require more than just an adjustment or two.

The fact is, despite the outcome, New York didn't play all that badly last night. This wasn't a repeat performance of game five against the Canes in which the Rangers managed only one high danger scoring chance. The Blueshirts actually showed up for this one; the Panthers were simply the better team from start to finish.

Which is why the Rangers, if they have any hope of winning this series, are going to have to go where they historically have resisted going: the middle of the ice. Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanajed must drive to the net when they have the puck. Pulling up in the offensive zone and forcing a cross-ice pass that has no chance of connecting with a teammate is only making the Panthers job easier. To advance in the postseason you need to go where angels fear to tread. Yes, they will get hit, and hit hard, if they do that. But that's part of the game.

Chris Kreider summed it up best: "Our whole entire game has to be a lot better. It wasn't there nearly enough tonight. It boils down to playing north-south hockey, getting pucks out, getting pucks in. That's the kind of hockey they played."

Bottom line: there needs to be a greater sense of urgency from everyone; a desire to do whatever it takes to win. The Panthers showed that desire last night; the Rangers must find it by game two or this will be a very short series.