It’s a tough time to be a fan of the Florida Panthers. The team has been so bad for so long that you have to believe that any Panthers fan that’s still around has the patience of a saint. However, in order for them to head in the winning direction, Panthers fans will have to wait a few more years because the cleansing process of new GM Dale Tallon has begun.
Tallon started the rebuild by shipping Nathan Horton and Gregory Campbell to Boston in exchange for Dennis Wideman and a couple of picks. In losing a couple of forwards, he replaced those forwards by trading Keith Ballard and Victor Oreskovich for Steve Bernier and Michael Grabner.
The Panthers will now rely on three former first-round picks that have shown glimpses of living up to their potential, but have mainly been under-achievers. For the Panthers to have any chance this season, Michael Frolik, Stephen Weiss and David Booth need to all improve their game. At least Booth has the excuse of dealing with concussions most of last season.
After the three youngsters, the Panthers are mostly made up of solid veterans that will put up decent numbers, but won’t necessarily do anything to scare the opposition. Because of their experience and work ethic, they’ll make the opposition earn a victory each night, but more often than not, that’s exactly what the opposition will do.
Defensively, the Panthers find themselves in trouble with talent and depth in their Top 6. Dennis Wideman takes over the spot vacated by Keith Ballard and should be on the first pairing with Bryan McCabe. Bryan Allen is now a solid veteran at this point and Dmitry Kulikov had a good first season down south, but their 5th and 6th defencemen will be young, inexperienced and possibly closer to playing at an AHL level instead.
The only solid aspect about this roster is their goaltending with Tomas Vokoun returning between the pipes to play out the final year of his contract. Despite playing on a terrible team, Vokoun put up a GAA of 2.55 and a save percentage of .920. The only question is whether or not he will last the full season in Sunrise. If the projections are correct and the Panthers are near the bottom again, does Tallon trade the expiring contract for futures to help with the re-build?
Two players to watch out for in camp are Shawn Matthias and Erik Gudbranson. Matthias has always been heralded as the possible saviour of the franchise ever since scoring 2 goals in only his second career game. It’s time to Matthias to step up and start living up to those expectations. Gudbranson must see how soft this group of defenders are and think that he’s got a great shot to stick with the big club. Kulikov made the jump last year by playing 68 games, scoring 16 points and finishing at -5 in plus/minus. Can Gudbranson do the same or even better by debuting in 2010-2011?