The Florida Panthers have been the laughing stock of the NHL for years, always a team with pieces that seemed to crumble when things truly mattered. In 2010 the Florida Panthers hired Dale Tallon with the hope of finally being able to reach the promised land; unfortunately, that was far from the case. The team yet again found themselves in mediocrity, not a basement team but also not one built to do any sort of legitimate damage in the playoffs. After ten more years of mediocrity, the Dale Tallon era ended abruptly. The Panthers found themselves sitting at home after a four-game series with the Islanders in the bubble. After a thorough search for the team’s new GM, the Panthers hired Bill Zito.
The team that Zito inherited was filled with issues including a lack of defensive depth, subpar goaltending, and multiple lucrative contracts tied to underperforming players. Notable players included Mike Matheson on an eight-year $4.875 million AAV deal, Anton Stralman on a three-year $5.5 million AAV deal, Keith Yandle on a seven-year $6.35 million AAV deal, Brett Connolly on a four-year $3.5 million AAV deal, and finally Sergei Bobrovsky on a seven-year $10 million AAV deal. With such a tremendous amount of cap space allocated to subpar players Zito was left in a sticky situation. It wasn’t all bad though Bill Zito also inherited the team’s two superstars Sasha Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau on six-year $5.9 million AAV deals along with several other key pieces locked down. Bill Zito managed to trade Mike Matheson and Colton Sceviour for Patric Hornqvist, both shredding salary and making a move towards a winning culture. Bill Zito also let both Evgeni Dadonov and Mike Hoffman walk in free agency, a risky move considering the team was losing roughly 60 goals a season between the two players. However, Zito preached that he wanted players that were willing to perform at both ends of the ice and neither Hoffman nor Dadonov fit the description. Notable additions in the 2020 offseason include Carter Verhaeghe, Anthony Duclair, Alex Wennberg, Radko Gudas, Gustav Forsling, Markus Nutivaara, and Patric Hornqvist. The culture change became evident in South Florida. Bill Zito also managed to draft Finnish center Anton Lundell with the 12th pick in the 2020 NHL draft, arguably the Panthers best prospect. Zito’s best move was locking down shutdown defensemen MacKenzie Weegar to a three-year $3.25 million extension that has blossomed into one of the league’s biggest steals. The 2020 offseason was an eventful one for the Panthers, but the narrative hadn’t changed. The team was projected to once again be on the outside locking in come playoff time, but they were seemingly headed in the right direction.
Bill Zito wanted to change the Panthers culture, a culture that accepted losing. In the 2020-2021 condensed NHL season the team did just that. Posting a record of 37-14-5 the team would finish second in the Central Division and fourth overall in the NHL, eventually the Panthers would fall to the soon to be repeat Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning in a hard-fought 6-game playoff series, without star defensemen Aaron Ekblad. Despite the loss, the Panthers showed genuine strides towards relevancy in the NHL all during Zito’s first season with the team. Carter Verhaeghe a player Zito signed for two years $1 million AAV found a home next to Sasha Barkov at the first line LW position, Aaron Ekblad took yet another giant step and played at a Norris caliber level before his season-ending injury. MacKenzie Weegar blossomed into a #1 NHL shutdown defenseman. Radko Gudas brought physicality and sound defense the team desperately needed. Patric Hornqvist showed he still has gas in the tank and provided a strong veteran presence in the locker room. Anthony Duclair seemingly found a home in South Florida and has signed a new contract that will keep him around for at least three more years. Building blocks, 2021 is a year that the Panthers laid true foundation. Players that I noted at the beginning of the article, the subpar ones on poor contracts, four out of five are no longer on the Florida Panthers. Zito has continued to add to an already elite team, Sam Bennett was added via trade towards the end of the 2020-2021 campaign and was red hot when the season came to an end. Then during the 2021 offseason Bill Zito went out and solidified the first line RW position by adding Sam Reinhart, a star forward from the Buffalo Sabres. Bill Zito seems eager to fill any holes present on the roster and NHL players seem to notice that something special is happening in South Florida. Just the other day NHL veteran Joe Thornton signed a league-minimum deal to join the team for one year. It’s no secret that the future Hall of Famer wants a Stanley Cup, and he thinks the Panthers have the team to do it. I could go on and on about how much this team has changed but I think it’s evident, simply put players want to come to South Florida and not just to retire on the beach but to win a Stanley Cup. Bill Zito said it best himself, “I think that the players are proud to be Panthers. And if that’s a measuring stick, then I think we’ve made some progress. And I’ll leave it at that.” A standard was set during the 2020-2021 year, a year where the team wasn’t expected to even be in the playoffs. But now the hockey world is on high alert, Bill Zito has transformed the culture, and now the cats are coming.