Category: Sports News

The final two teams are left in The Hockey News’ NHL summer splash rankings, which rank the off-seasons of every NHL team, and when you’re this high on the list, you’ve done a lot of things right.

Our rankings, which break down every team’s off-season additions, departures, hirings and firings, resulted in teams fitting into one of three areas: off-seasons that have improved the team, off-seasons that have kept the team largely the same, and off-seasons that have made the team worse. Moving from worst off-seasons to best off-seasons, we’re now well past the point where we’re focused on teams that have regressed or stayed the same. 

And in this specific file, we’re looking at the No. 2 team in our rankings, the defending, back-to-back Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers,

Many thought the Panthers would have to strip away talent due to salary cap constrictions, but the primary reason they’re in second place on our summer splash list is the fact that they were able to keep things largely together. You needn’t make many additions when you’ve got a dynasty-in-the-making, so it’s understandable why Florida bent over backward to keep the gang together.

Additions

Nolan Foote (LW), Jeff Petry (D), Daniil Tarasov (G)

The Breakdown: The Panthers went all-in for their second straight Cup win last season, acquiring veteran left winger Brad Marchand from the Boston Bruins at the trade deadline. But while many presumed Marchand would be a pure rental and only a Panther for less than half of a season, Florida GM Bill Zito found a way to keep Marchand around for the long term, signing him to a six-year contract this summer.

Similarly, people wondered if the Panthers could hold onto UFAs Sam Bennett and defenseman Aaron Ekblad, but not only did Zito manage to do that, he also re-signed Marchand, Ekblad, and Bennett to deals that had a combined salary cap hit of $19.35 million. That’s terrific asset management, and that’s the primary reason we’ve got Florida ranked second overall on this list.

The Panthers did make a couple additions, first signing former Detroit Red Wings blueliner Jeff Petry to a low-cost, decent-reward $775,000 one-year contract. The 37-year-old Petry is far from his peak as a 40-point-producing D-man, but Florida has excelled at making new acquisitions thrive, and as a depth blueliner, Petry could have a late-career renewal as a Panther.

The other notable addition is former Columbus Blue Jackets netminder Tarasov, who effectively replaces Vitek Vanecek as Sergei Bobrovsky's understudy. Tarasov’s numbers (including a 3.54 goals-against average and .881 save percentage) were sub-par, but so was the Blue Jackets team in front of him. The 36-year-old Bobrovsky is still going to get the lion’s share of the work in Florida’s net, but it will be intriguing to see how they work Tarasov into the team dynamic.

Departures

Jesse Puljujarvi (RW), Nico Sturm (C), Nate Schmidt (D), Vitek Vanecek (G)

The Breakdown: Go through the rosters of teams that have won Cups, and see the type of roster turnover those teams go through in the immediate years following winning a championship. You’d find that most teams, for one reason or another, are forced to send at least a handful of players packing. 

But this hasn’t been the case with Florida this summer. Zito has conducted a masterclass in roster retention, and that has resulted in losing only two Panthers players who appeared in playoff action last spring: veteran defenseman Schmidt, who averaged only 16:32 of ice time as a third-tier blueliner, and forward Sturm, who averaged just 8:59 of ice time in eight playoff games for Florida.

So, the Panthers have found a way to bring back 95 percent of their regular players and set themselves up for another deep playoff run next spring. Zito couldn’t have done a better job keeping the band together, and having to part ways only with two fringe players underscores what a great job Zito is doing as GM.

The Bottom Line

When we put these summer splash rankings together, THN.com’s writers and editors agreed that we weren’t going to reward teams simply for making a slew of changes. We wanted the big picture teams that painted this summer to dictate where we slotted a team in on this list, and that’s why the Panthers are ranked ahead of all but one of their 31 counterparts.

Zito has yet to win a Jim Gregory Award as the NHL’s best GM, but you’d have to think that will change after the recent success Zito has had. He found a way to utilize all his cap space by locking up UFAs when those UFAs had all the leverage. This has proven to be a problem for Zito’s GM colleagues, so it isn’t an understatement to note Zito is performing on another level right now.

It’s still going to be an uphill climb for the Panthers to win three straight Cups, but you can’t say Zito hasn’t given his players and Florida coach Paul Maurice all the tools they’ll need to make a deep playoff push and win it all. When few people believed Zito would re-sign all of Marchand, Ekblad and Bennett, he went out and did exactly that. And for that reason, the Panthers deserve to be second-overall on our summer splash list. Only one team had a better off-season, and that’s a credit to Zito & Co..

Summer Splash Rankings

2. Florida Panthers

3. Vegas Golden Knights

4. Carolina Hurricanes

5. Anaheim Ducks

6. Philadelphia Flyers

7. Vancouver Canucks

8. San Jose Sharks

9. Utah Mammoth

10. New York Rangers

11. Detroit Red Wings

12. New Jersey Devils

13. St. Louis Blues

14. Pittsburgh Penguins

15. Colorado Avalanche

16. Ottawa Senators

17. Boston Bruins

18. Edmonton Oilers

19. Minnesota Wild

20. Seattle Kraken

21. Columbus Blue Jackets

22. Washington Capitals

23. Nashville Predators

24. New York Islanders

25. Tampa Bay Lightning

26. Toronto Maple Leafs

27. Dallas Stars

28. Calgary Flames

29. Los Angeles Kings

30. Winnipeg Jets

31. Chicago Blackhawks

32. Buffalo Sabres

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The Detroit Red Wings have come to terms with St. Malo product Travis Hamonic on a one-year contract. 

The 34-year-old will make an even $1 million for the 2025-26 season in Motor City, operating under general manager Steve Yzerman and head coach Todd McLellan. 

Hamonic, who spent the past four seasons in Ottawa, has seen his numbers suffer over his time in the nation's capital, as his goal and point total have declined, while his plus-minus has also inflated over the past few seasons. 

A veteran of 900 career games, Hamonic will look to revitalize things on the back-end in Detroit, which will be his fifth NHL team.

After spending seven years to start his career on the Island, the six-foot, 200-pound defender will look to find his way back to the postseason in Detroit after failing to crack the playoffs since the 2018-19 season with Calgary. Hamonic has only made it to the postseason three times in his 15-year career. 

Hamonic joins Jacob Bernard-Docker, James van Riemsdyk, Mason Appleton, Ian Mitchell and John Gibson as new faces in the winged wheel for 2025-26.

The Florida Panthers have done a remarkable job building a roster that will keep the team contending for the Stanley Cup for years to come.

That’s coming on the heels of back-to-back Stanley Cup victories and three straight Final appearances.

With such a formidable roster that’s locked up for the foreseeable future, THN Florida has been examining current Panthers players who could someday find their jersey numbers hanging in the rafters.

Today we’ll take a look at a man who has only played for the Panthers, and who could very well end up staying with Florida for the entirety of his career.

We’re talking about defenseman Aaron Ekblad.

Florida selected Ekblad with the first overall selection at the 2014 NHL Entry Draft. He was only the second player that the Panthers have ever taken number one in the draft, following defenseman Ed Jovanovski, who was taken all the way back in 1994.

Ekblad immediately started at the NHL level with the Panthers as a fresh faced 18-year-old, putting up an impressive 12 goals and 39 points during his rookie campaign.

Most Panthers fans probably have to do a double take when realizing that Ekblad, despite already having played 11 seasons in the NHL, is still only 29 years old.

As he prepares to enter his 12th year with the Cats, Ekblad finds himself climbing the charts on several of Florida’s all-time statistical categories.

In terms of games played, Ekblad’s 732 only trail fellow Panthers lifer Sasha Barkov, who came into the league one year before Ekblad and has played 804 games with the Cats.

Regarding defensemen, Ekblad leads all Florida blueliners in goals, assists, games played, points, shots, power play goals and game-winning goals.

He’s third on Florida’s all-time assists list, behind Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau, and fifth in total points, trailing Barkov, Huberdeau, Olli Jokinen and Stephen Weiss.

Last month, Ekblad signed an eight-year extension with the Panthers that will keep him in South Florida through the 2022-23 NHL season.

That means by the time he hangs up his skates, Ekblad will hold team defensive records that could stand for a long, long time.

Ekblad made it very clear in the time leading up to the offseason that despite being an unrestricted free agent, his only intent was to re-sign with Florida, and he took less money in order to do so.

It’s hard to imagine after playing nearly two full decades in a Panthers sweater, that Ekblad wouldn’t be immortalized in the franchise’s history by having his number retired.

He’s already carved out a special place for himself in team history, and that legend is only going to grow as he plays out his deal on a team that should continue competing for Stanley Cups.

Ekblad may not get as much credit for it as he deserves, but this guy is as ‘Panthers’ as anyone has been in the team’s history.

He deserves recognition for it, and someday, the team will likely make sure he absolutely gets it.

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Photo caption: Jan 26, 2025; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad (5) warms up before a game against the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena. (Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images)

When it comes to hockey, Montreal is a city that never sleeps. All through the summer, we’ve seen footage coming out of the Montreal Canadiens’ training facility in Brossard of players training hard through the dog days of Summer. There’s been plenty of talk about Ivan Demidov spending the summer in his new hometown and a lot of speculation about Kirby Dach’s health status. Earlier this week, GM Kent Hughes spoke to NHL.com about both players, and what he had to say was interesting.

Speaking about Russian rookie Demidov, the man in charge praised his work ethic, saying the youngster has been skating in Brossard twice a day, five times a week, adding that he’s been trying to keep him off the ice. It sounds like Hughes has another Lane Hutson on his hands. Last season, the now sophomore defenseman was spending so much time on the ice that the Canadiens had to forbid him to skate for him to take a day off when the rest of the team wasn’t skating.

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The GM also added he felt he could see Demidov start to figure the NHL game out during the playoffs when it came to knowing how much time he had, or didn’t have, to make a play. That’s undoubtedly an encouraging sign for a player who has only had seven games of NHL hockey under his belt. Despite being very young and green, you can expect Demidov to slide into a top-six pair when the puck drops on the 2025-26 season.

Speaking of the top six, Hughes also briefly talked about Dach’s health status and mentioned the hope is that the center will be ready to go at the start of the season or early in the fall. While there was no promise made about him being prepared to start the upcoming season, in the Canadiens’ press release about his injury, it was mentioned that he was expected to be ready for the start of the 2025-26 campaign.

As we’ve discussed earlier this offseason, coming back from a second ACL injury is a big deal, and Canadiens fans don’t have to look very far to realize that. Former Habs blueliner Andrei Markov had to go under the knife twice for this same injury, and the road to recovery was a long one.

Dach will be ready when he is ready, but at this stage, it’s important not to rush him back and allow the knee to heal properly if the Canadiens want to see and get the very best out of the 24-year-old.

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Former New Jersey Devils goaltender Keith Kinkaid is aiming for an NHL comeback this season.

The 36-year-old netminder, listed at six-foot-two, first broke into the league in 2012-13 after going undrafted. He spent his first six seasons with the Devils before moving on to the Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, and most recently the Colorado Avalanche in 2022-23.

Though he appeared in just one NHL game over his last three seasons, Kinkaid is making noise again thanks to an impressive showing at this summer’s 3ICE 3-on-3 tournament, held at the Florida Panthers’ practice facility. Playing with 3ICE Buffalo, he turned aside 30 shots across two wins, including a highlight-reel save on a two-on-one breakaway, to help his team secure the tournament’s No. 1 seed.

Buffalo now heads into the final four championship this week, where they’ll face Minnesota. A win would set up a matchup against either NY/NJ or Tennessee.

“I knew we needed to win, and I knew I needed to be dialed in early,” Kinkaid told NHL.com following his performance.

Last season, Kinkaid suited up in the ECHL with the Savannah Ghost Pirates, posting a .893 save percentage in 32 games after several years bouncing between AHL teams. In his NHL career, he has appeared in 169 games with a career .905 save percentage.

Now, his focus is squarely on returning to the league. “Right now, I just want to keep playing. We’ll see what happens,” Kinkaid said. “This is a great opportunity to show I still have it. My body is holding up very well. I am 36, but I am just trying to prolong my career because once it’s done, it’s done. [3ICE] has given me the chance to keep playing, to showcase that I still have gas left in the tank. It has been a tough couple of years just bouncing around, but hopefully someone calls and I get the chance to play again this season.”

Kinkaid remains unsigned heading into 2025-26 but is open to any opportunity. “Any opportunity is fine with me,” he added.