Welcome to all as we embark on another zany summer of free agent signings aka the silly season. Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito currently has a lot of openings to fill and doesn’t have a ton cap space to do so, so he will need to continue his magical work to build the depth needed to give the Stanley Cup champions a good shot at defending the crown in the upcoming 2024-25 season.
What are the Cats looking for? Well, a lot, actually. Florida currently has just 14 players signed to contracts right now, this does not included restricted free agents Anton Lundell and Josh Mahura. so the front office has a lot of heavy lifting to do. I would imagine they’ll try to return as much of last year’s roster as possible (within reason) before moving on to other options.
If you’ve been with us for any of our past “Free Agent Frenzy” threads you’ll be familiar with the surroundings: post your own thoughts, reactions, any rumors that catch your eye (please source them), favorite breakfast or lunch spot, streaming show recs, what have you. Whether it’s about the NHL in general or the Panthers in particular, feel free to share it.
The free agent fireworks begin at 12 p.m. ET, so keep your peepers glued to the interweb so you don’t miss anything.
– Florida’s salary/roster situation courtesy of CapFriendly
– The Panthers’ current unrestricted free agents:
- Sam Reinhart (re-signed: 8 years, $69 million)
- Dmitry Kulikov (re-signed: 4 years, $4.6 million)
- Brandon Montour (signed with Seattle Kraken)
- Kevin Stenlund (signed with Utah Hockey Club)
- Oliver Ekman-Larsson (signed with Toronto Maple Leafs)
- Anthony Stolarz (signed with Toronto Maple Leafs)
- Ryan Lomberg (signed with Calgary)
- Vladimir Tarasenko
- Nick Cousins
- Steven Lorentz
- Kyle Okposo
New Panthers
- Tomas Nosek (1 year, $775K)
- A.J. Greer (2 years, $1.7 milliom)
- Jesper Boqvist (1 year, $775K)
Usual Twitter Suspects:
- Elliotte Friedman (Sportsnet)
- Pierre LeBrun (TSN)
- Frank Seravelli (DailyFaceoff)
- Jameson Olive (Florida Panthers)
- David Dwork (The Hockey News)
- Panthers Official