2025-26 NHL team preview: Florida Panthers
LAST SEASON
The Panthers won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history in 2023-24, and retaining their entire championship roster was next to impossible. They watched defensemen Brandon Montour and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, forwards Vladimir Tarasenko, Ryan Lomberg, Nick Cousins and Kevin Stenlund and goaltender Anthony Stolarz, among others, walk in free agency, while Kyle Opkoso retired. Still, they re-signed 57-goal scorer Sam Reinhart and maintained an elite core that included Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett up front, Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad on defense and Sergei Bobrovsky in goal. The Panthers were shallower, no doubt, but still had the most important drivers of their Cup-winning outfit.
And GM Bill Zito wasn’t going to hand the chalice back easily. No way. In an epic winter trade flurry during the 2024-25 campaign, he sacrificed goaltender Spencer Knight to buy low on Seth Jones and paid the larcenously low price of a conditional 2027 second-round pick to pry captain Brad Marchand from the Boston Bruins while he was recovering from a head injury and his value was slightly depressed. Caring not for seeding, the Cats rested their starters often down the stretch, sauntered into the playoffs as the third-place Atlantic team and coldly disposed of the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games. The Toronto Maple Leafs gave the Panthers a seven-game scare in Round 2, but they prevailed with a dominant series-clinching road win. Riding a Conn-Smythe-winning power-forward run from Sam Bennett and a downright unfair third line of Eetu Luostarainen, Anton Lundell and Marchand, the Panthers made short work of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final and only needed six games this time to defeat the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final.
So the Panthers were back-to-back champs. Surely this time the empire would crumble, with Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand heading to unrestricted free agency. Nope. The Panthers found a way to re-sign all three on team-friendly deals, exploiting every last saved tax dollar while presumably knowing in advance that Tkachuk, torn adductor and all, would land on LTIR to open the year. Sorry, haters, but the NHL’s best-run franchise had a virtuosic offseason and kept almost the entire gang together. Can a repeat become a three-peat in 2025-26?
KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES
Additions
Jeff Petry, D
Luke Kunin, RW
Daniil Tarasov, G
Departures
Nate Schmidt, D (Utah)
Nico Sturm, C (Min)
Vitek Vanecek, D (Utah)
Jaycob Megna, D (VGK)
OFFENSE
Florida’s offensive numbers in 2024-25 epitomized how they played possum. They finished only 15th in goals and had one 30-goal scorer. They ran the league’s No. 13 power play. But they were extra careful resting their star forwards during the season’s stretch run, most notably Tkachuk, who didn’t play between the 4 Nations Face-Off and the start of the postseason as he nursed his groin injury. From Barkov to Bennett to Reinhart and even Marchand when he first arrived, almost every major scoring threat saw some time off leading into the playoffs. The Panthers were a top-two team in the NHL at 5-on-5 scoring chance generation, and as soon as their lineup got to full strength in April, voila, they were a wagon. They scored a league-best 4.09 goals per game in the postseason and converted north of 25 percent on the power play while generating 54.71 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5.
We can expect a similar attack from Florida in 2025-26: elite at driving play and extremely deep. Verhaeghe, Barkov and Reinhart form arguably the best two-way line in the NHL. The Luostarinen-Lundell-Marchand unit might be the best third line in the league, too; they steamrolled their opponents 13-4 at 5-on-5 during the 2024-25 postseason. Whether those two trios remain intact depends on what coach Paul Maurice does with his second line while Tkachuk is out until winter recovering from his adductor surgery. We’ll likely see Evan Rodrigues on the left and Bennett in the middle; can talented youngster Mackie Samoskevich step up as the other winger?
The Panthers don’t have the flashiest D-corps in the league, but each of them, from Forsling to Ekblad to Jones to even Niko Mikkola, steps up with the odd goal, particularly in the playoffs, and they do a tremendous job holding the opposing blueline to help the forwards maintain zone time.
DEFENSE
The Panthers are right there with the Carolina Hurricanes and Los Angeles Kings setting the gold standard for stinginess in recent seasons. No team allowed fewer 5-on-5 scoring chances than Florida last season, and it had the lowest expected goals against of any Eastern Conference club. We shouldn’t expect anything to change in 2025-26; the Panthers’ only significant departure was Nate Schmidt, and while he absolutely aced his defensive matchups last season, he played a sheltered third-pair role, which Jeff Petry will inherit alongside Dmitry Kulikov. The duo of Forsling and Ekblad will continue to vacuum up the big minutes, with Forsling in particular excelling as one of the NHL’s best two-way defensemen. Last season, 55.73 percent of the 5-on-5 scoring chances went Florida’s way with those two on the ice. The uber-talented Jones, a sublime skater, gradually found his game and cemented a formidable second pair with bruiser Mikkola. Florida outchanced opponents 121-88 with that rangy twosome on the ice during the postseason.
Of course, part of why the Panthers’ defensemen have such great play-driving stats is the elite defensive work done by their forwards. Barkov and Reinhart finished first and second in the Selke Trophy vote last season. The Panthers get buy-in throughout their entire lineup and play defense as a committee. On top of being so conscientious in their own end, they’re also downright mean; no team threw more hits or took more penalties last season. The Panthers make you pay, with the nasty Bennett in particular serving as their tone setter.
GOALTENDING
Remember when Bobrovsky carried a playoff choker label and supposedly had one of the NHL’s worst contracts? It feels like a distant dream. ‘Bob’ is a surefire Hall of Famer, a two-time Vezina Trophy winner, a 400-game winner, and he has carried that play into the postseason for the past three years, helping Florida reach three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals and winning two of them. Now 36, he’s somewhat of bend-but-don’t break goaltender during the regular season these days, not dominant but consistently above average and maintaining a save percentage north of .900. Few if any goalies commit more to fitness and preparation, and it pays off during the playoff grind. Over the past three spring runs, Bobrovsky has a .912 SV% with six shutouts. During last year’s postseason alone, he saved 11.9 goals above expected; think about what it means at that time of year when your starting goalie stops 12 shots that should have been sure goals.
The Panthers used Knight to get Jones and thus needed to find another No. 2 netminder to develop. Tarasov, whom the Columbus Blue Jackets drafted when Zito was their assistant GM, makes for an intriguing reclamation project. He’s still just 26, he has a great frame at 6-foot-5, he was dominant at times playing in his native Russia and he’s shown flashes at the NHL level, posting a .908 SV% two seasons ago before struggling last season. He also has an ideal mentor in countryman and friend Bobrovsky. Would it surprise anyone if the Panthers turned Tarasov into a stellar backup?
COACHING
Maurice’s 916 victories place him third in NHL history, and he hasn’t not reached the Stanley Cup Final in his three campaigns behind the Panther bench. He preaches a playoff-ready style of hockey year round, aggressive and physical, which bakes in the mentality needed to put opponents on their heels come April. He is also a players’ coach who connects with his troops and who champions positivity. The more his team wins, the more he can trust his veterans to keep doing all the right things across 200 feet of ice. Maurice’s trademark ability to spin media-friendly quips is an extension of his coaching persona; he’s communicative, funny and known to inspire tremendous respect among his players.
ROOKIES
The Panthers’ prospect pool is every bit as barren as you’d expect from a team that chases Cups and sacrifices futures to do so. The good news is that, because Zito has put so much work into building his super-team, the Panthers are so deep that they don’t really need help from rookies right now. The most likely to contribute in 2025-26 is their top prospect, right winger Jack Devine. He had a stellar college career at the University of Denver and saw some AHL action late last season after going pro. He’s a bit undersized but brings high energy and playmaking skill.
BURNING QUESTIONS
1. Who steps up while Matthew Tkachuk is out? It tells you a lot about Tkachuk’s recovery timeline when Team USA GM Bill Guerin is commenting on whether he expects Tkachuk back in time for the 2026 Olympics. We won’t see him in game action before the calendar reaches 2026. Who fills his scoring void? Samoskevich has the skill and pedigree to do it. He scored 15 regular-season goals while playing just 12 minutes a night last season. It wouldn’t be remotely surprising if he broke out and sniped 25-30 goals this season. And if he doesn’t prove ready, Marchand can pretty seamlessly jump up to the second line until Tkachuk returns.
2. Will the Panthers load manage their stars again this winter? When you have as many elite players as Florida does, you must accept that a bunch of them will head to the 2026 Olympics. Will Florida be cautious with the likes of Barkov, Reinhart, Bennett, Forsling and Tkachuk upon their return from Milan, even if it means accepting a lower playoff seed once again?
3. How will Florida navigate the playoff salary cap? According to PuckPedia, the Panthers’ Cup-clinching Game 6 lineup against Edmonton exceeded the $88 million salary cap by $5 million. But Florida doesn’t have the luxury of dropping Tkachuk into the lineup, free of cap penalties, anymore now that the NHL’s playoff salary cap under the new CBA has been fast-tracked into the final season of the old CBA. Zito will have to be much more careful with his in-season spending, most notably his trade acquisitions.
PREDICTION
The Panthers will eventually face the consequences of punting picks and prospects and paying players like Marchand until they’re in their mid-40s. But not yet. One of the best all-around teams of the salary-cap era is largely intact, armed with a GM who is a true artist when it comes to acquiring highly pedigreed yet undervalued assets. We haven’t seen a three-peat in the NHL since the New York Islanders did so in the early 1980s, but it feels like the Panthers genuinely have a chance to execute it. They remain among the league’s elite Stanley Cup contenders, and they’ve proven they don’t even need a high playoff seed to make a run.
Advanced stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Money Puck
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