Speculation: Is it smart for Florida to hold on to Knight?

[AnInjuredJasonZucker]

Richard Marx thinks they should.

I should have checked page 2 before posting the same joke. Congratulations for beating me to it. And congratulations to Mr. Marx. This is the most heat he's gotten in 30 years.

 

[Djp]

They're paying him 4.5M over the next two years along with paying Bobrovsky 10M for two years. Right now, defense looks like it could potentially have some weaknesses unless Nate Schmidt bounces back greatly.

They can probably weather it this year but for next summer, you'd still have two goalies at 15M combined but then would have Ekblad, Bennett, and Verhaeghe to resign. I suppose you can trade Bob somewhere then but he does have a 16-team no-trade. And I suppose if you hold on to Knight this year, you hope he plays well and recoups trade value for next summer. Either way, I just don't think it would be smart to have both of them on the books for 2025-26.

I suppose the plan for right now is to go with both of them for this year and find a way to bank some cap space and trade for a D at the deadline? Forward depth is decently good as is.

They could durvive...

Bennet and verheague both got $7M. Exblad is replaced by 2 $4.5M Dmen and fill in the restxwith $1M or less contracts they should be under the cap.

 

[Ford Prefect]

Bingo. The trolls will come out ofcourse from the typical fanbases. But why wouldn't Chicago, Montreal, Columbus, San Jose etc take a chance. They are in full rebuilds.

ESPECIALLY Montreal. They already have 3, 15, and 16. Why not add 13 as well? I'm betting they can buy up half the first round draft class for pennies on the dollar.

 

[Chaos2k7]

Is Knight waiver-exempt next season?

Yes he is

 

[GhostfaceWu]

We lost Montour and OEL. And Mahura as the 8.

Whose replacing both players 30+ points? Mikkola? Kulikov? Hell even getting that out of Ekblad will be tough if last year was an indicator on his offense going forward. Good luck with those guys playing top four minutes.

 

[RogerRoger]

Whose replacing both players 30+ points? Mikkola? Kulikov? Hell even getting that out of Ekblad will be tough if last year was an indicator on his offense going forward. Good luck with those guys playing top four minutes.

The Panthers did fine with Montour dropping 40 points from the year prior and losing 32 from Gudas&Staal. Points wise I'm not worried, but they are both very good and it's a huge blow for team defense and it'll be very painful when injuries happen.

A lot of this point production comes from the PP. And considering how it was crushed by the Oilers, I see more teams adopting that style of PK, heck the Panthers had some success using it in "shutting down" the Rangers and Oilers' PP.

So the PP strategy needed to change regardless and using Forsling and Ekblad might seems like a downgrade, but imo the new tactics is more important than that swap of personnel. We had a negative PP% in the SC finals with Montour and OEL, so tactics is what will matters if my reading of PK strats come to pass.

Bjornfot and Balinskis are better get in shape because until the Panthers get someone on vet minimum like Suter, they'll get a lot of ice-time.

 

[Jared Dunn]

Do they even have the assets needed to dump him? I was more surprised he didn't get bought out last week

I would 100% take him on the Habs if he's being given away and I'm beyond certain several bottom feeders would take a flier on him. The upside is tremendous, can't imagine they even considered a buyout for a second

 

[Leafshater67]

Zito wasn’t “really dumb” for not paying 30 year old Montour 7.1+ for 7 years. Verhaeghe isn’t re-signed yet, neither is Ek or Benny, and I’ll go ahead and trust the GM who just brought us a Cup. Our core 8 understands the team defense and what it takes to be successful.
Forsling-Ek
Mikkola-Kulikov/Schmidt
Kuli/Schmidt/Balinskas/Bjornfort
(For now) The D will be fine and more could come this off-season. As I said, we can improve where needed at the deadline. There’s no shortage of players who want to be here.

There is no rock or hard place when it comes to Knight. He could still be traded, but I don’t believe so. This is likely the last year of Bob. Possibly of Ek as well.

Agree to disagree. I’m not letting a top pairing RD go to retain another scoring forward when you have multiple. It’s Forsling and a bunch of third pair guys IMO, plus Ekblad for whatever games he’s healthy. The cup window is now and a solid blueline wins championships. 30 is not too old for this teams’ timeline

 

[Laus723]

Agree to disagree. I’m not letting a top pairing RD go to retain another scoring forward when you have multiple. It’s Forsling and a bunch of third pair guys IMO, plus Ekblad for whatever games he’s healthy. The cup window is now and a solid blueline wins championships. 30 is not too old for this teams’ timeline

Monty took a step back from last season and gave up a few goals due to poor decisions on the PP at the point. Love the guy, but you didn’t explain how he’s worth 7x7. Reinhart pairs incredibly well with Barkov and whomever is on the top line with them. Mikkola’s a 3rd pair guy? The whole team didn’t play as a unit defensively, they’re just “scoring forwards?” Please, do tell us more of what you don’t know about the Panthers, and how Zito should do his job.

 

[Leafshater67]

Monty took a step back from last season and gave up a few goals due to poor decisions on the PP at the point. Love the guy, but you didn’t explain how he’s worth 7x7. Reinhart pairs incredibly well with Barkov and whomever is on the top line with them. Mikkola’s a 3rd pair guy? The whole team didn’t play as a unit defensively, they’re just “scoring forwards?” Please, do tell us more of what you don’t know about the Panthers, and how Zito should do his job.

On what planet are you living if you think a top pair RD in his prime is not worth 7m?

They could have moved Verhaeghe and made it work. An 8th year option coulda drove down AAV a little too. Ekblad is not dependable anymore and when he goes down, Forsling is the only top pair or even top 4 calibre guy they have. They could have much easier filled a spot on the wing than they could a spot that half the league wants to fill (RD, top pair).

You can criticize me all you want and shoot your mouth off about Zito but it ain’t just me saying they have a big hole on the back end with Montour leaving. Hard to say what went on behind the scenes with talks of a Verhaeghe extension being 8m, I’d rather have Montour at 7. They need a D a lot more than a winger.

I see a major problem with depth on the back end that a bottom 4 of Kulikov, Schmidt, Mikkola and some minor leaguer can’t solve, especially if Forsling or Ekblad gets hurt.

 

[Nogatco Rd]

You see it all around you, good goalies gone bad. And usually it's too late, when you realize what you had.

 

[CanadienShark]

Yeah but for 2025-26 specifically, you'd need to find a way to trade Bob or you lose some good players to free agency. Panthers have a cup window right now and need to maximize it.

No one is paying for Bob and Panthers don't have the assets to dump him. Let alone the optics of moving the guy who was so key in winning the cup immediately after said cup.

 

[scholl]

They're paying him 4.5M over the next two years along with paying Bobrovsky 10M for two years. Right now, defense looks like it could potentially have some weaknesses unless Nate Schmidt bounces back greatly.

They can probably weather it this year but for next summer, you'd still have two goalies at 15M combined but then would have Ekblad, Bennett, and Verhaeghe to resign. I suppose you can trade Bob somewhere then but he does have a 16-team no-trade. And I suppose if you hold on to Knight this year, you hope he plays well and recoups trade value for next summer. Either way, I just don't think it would be smart to have both of them on the books for 2025-26.

I suppose the plan for right now is to go with both of them for this year and find a way to bank some cap space and trade for a D at the deadline? Forward depth is decently good as is.

That $4.5m is too much but now they cannot do anything about it. The question is whether he's good enough to become their starter. If yes, don't trade him. If not, trade him. We don't know it yet. Therefore they need to keep him. After the 24-25 season they'll probably trade either Bob or Knight.

When it comes to defense, it was worse in 22-23 than now. Last summer they were able to find some amazing value players and after departures of OEL and Montour it will not be as good as it was. It will, however, be good enough and something might happen at the TDL or when injuries take place.

I don't think that Panthers re-sign Bennett. Lundell will take his place. Verhaeghe is going to earn $8m ish. Ekblad either stays with a lower cap hit or will be replaced with a faster d-man.

 

[scholl]

There not going to trade the Goalie that just won them a stanley cup I'm sorry and also no one is going to take a 36+ year old goalie at ten million, florida is stuck with that Contract and I don't think trading him at any point is a good idea he's literally money in the play offs

Someone might take because after the next season he has only one year left. Think about how much winning culture he could bring to Utah for example where they are trying to build something from scratch.

 

[scholl]

On what planet are you living if you think a top pair RD in his prime is not worth 7m?

Forsling is one of the best defensemen in the league and earns $5.75m AAV for the next 8 years. They cannot justify paying Monty more than Gus.

 

[Dread Clawz]

Agree to disagree. I’m not letting a top pairing RD go to retain another scoring forward when you have multiple. It’s Forsling and a bunch of third pair guys IMO, plus Ekblad for whatever games he’s healthy. The cup window is now and a solid blueline wins championships. 30 is not too old for this teams’ timeline

Lol Montour is not a top pairing RD. Top pair guys have to play defense.

 

[Vitto79]

Right now it’s a bad contract but they won the cup with the money on the books sooooo

 

[Laus723]

On what planet are you living if you think a top pair RD in his prime is not worth 7m?

They could have moved Verhaeghe and made it work. An 8th year option coulda drove down AAV a little too. Ekblad is not dependable anymore and when he goes down, Forsling is the only top pair or even top 4 calibre guy they have. They could have much easier filled a spot on the wing than they could a spot that half the league wants to fill (RD, top pair).

You can criticize me all you want and shoot your mouth off about Zito but it ain’t just me saying they have a big hole on the back end with Montour leaving. Hard to say what went on behind the scenes with talks of a Verhaeghe extension being 8m, I’d rather have Montour at 7. They need a D a lot more than a winger.

I see a major problem with depth on the back end that a bottom 4 of Kulikov, Schmidt, Mikkola and some minor leaguer can’t solve, especially if Forsling or Ekblad gets hurt.

You’re struggling to understand the cap for some reason. Verhaeghe makes 3ish less than Monty just got, depth is hugely important and there’s multiple guys that either would not have been able to come back or come in with an extra 3 going to Monty. I’m not saying he’s not worth it in general, I’m saying he wasn’t worth what that cap hit means here. Especially at 30, and an 8th year makes less sense.

You keep shitting on Mikkola for some reason and is one of the several things you refuse to listen to. He’s a 2nd pair defenseman here. Period. He was on the ice with Forsling to close out game 7 in a Cup win.

You also have a hard time understanding the importance of team defense. Reinhart is elite on both ends of the ice, he wasn’t going anywhere. Back to Verhaeghe, he continuously scores big game goals, is a monster in the post season, and fits perfectly well in the system. There’s rumors on what he’ll re-sign for, but he hasn’t signed yet. Which goes to…

Lmao, thanks for your permission to “shoot off my mouth about Zito.” I definitely will, and I don’t give a f*** what you or others say about our current “holes.” For one, there’s a lot of time between now and the start of the season. Plenty of time to figure things out further. Last off-season we signed a bunch of lefty d-men, we got through injuries to Monty and Ek with a strong record. Then Zito brought in forwards at the deadline…we won the Cup. He’s found a #1 d-man on waivers, brought in guys who struggled elsewhere and became elite or very good here, saw what it takes to win and made the moves to make it happen. He just made the Florida Panthers champions. My trust is 1000% in him, and I get why he didn’t re-sign Montour.

 

[thegazelle]

Personally, I think keeping him is a good move and even if they had Stollarz still, I would prefer Knight be given the chance to backup Bob. Is Knight a world class goalie? No, but in seeing him play previously, he has more than good potential to be a solid number 2. I do agree that the salary is fairly high for a backup, but it's Zito's money to spend, not mine.

Bobrovsky is also hardly a spring chicken, so while he survived a grueling season, and a playoffs in which he was fairly busy, it may not be the case in subsequent years, especially as he continues to age. But age aside, no player is immune to a freak injury - look at Ben Bishop for TB years ago - getting injured at the worst time. Sure, Vailselevsky was in the wings then, but in my view, better to have a backup that has developed in your system, rather than bring in a veteran backup who may or may not mesh with the team and the defense in front of him.

 

[Double-Shift Lasse]

Richard Marx thinks they should.

Hold on to Bobrovky.
Don't think that they could give you more.

 

[CaptainScrewy]

you're leaving out the fact he plays for a very strong team with good team defense, you put him on a team like the Coyotes and his numbers would not be that strong. Bobs numbers were inflated by playing for a good team, just like Ullmark, I'm not saying he's not a good goalie because he is, but the system he plays in help the numbers a lot.

Nothing you just said changes anything I said. Vezina finalist, Stanley cup winning goalies don't come cheap.

 

[LudwigVonKarlsson]

Brady

keep dreamin

 

[Laus723]

keep dreamin

We do

 

[FerrisRox]

Do they even have the assets needed to dump him? I was more surprised he didn't get bought out last week

You thought the Panthers should have bought out Knight?

Why would they do that? That would be absolutely idiotic.

 

[Crazy Cizikas]

A good system helps a goalie have better numbers. No f***ing way!

Gotta love the ol “he’s on a great team, so you can’t consider him a great player” argument.