We are back for another year for the 2024-25 season of our annual Puck Drop Previews here at Last Word on Hockey. As the regular season approaches, Last Word will preview each team’s current outlook and stories to watch for the upcoming year. We’ll also do our best to project how things will go for each team throughout the campaign. Today, we’re previewing the defending Stanley Cup champion, this year’s edition, the 2024-25 Florida Panthers.
Our NHL Puck Drop Previews and the 2024-25 Florida Panthers
The Panthers entered the beginning of last season as one of the top Stanley Cup contenders. After an eighth-place finish in the 2023 NHL Eastern Conference standings, the Panthers road a hot hand to the finals. That was only to lose to the Vegas Golden Knights, a franchise winning the cup in just their sixth year of existence. Therefore, the league was aware of how good Florida was coming into last season. But that didn’t stop the Panthers from being a dominant team. Eventually, they would prevail in seven games against the Edmonton Oilers to win the Stanley Cup in 2024.
Let’s Start Things Off with a Review of their Stanley Cup Championship Season
The club last year was very deep, especially defensively. Sergei Bobrovsky, certainly had a terrific season and no one seems to care that he is just shy of 36 as we approach the beginning of the 2024-25 campaign. His numbers last year were terrific with a 36-17-4 record and a 2.37 goals-against-average and a .915 save percentage. Furthermore, Bobrovsky is helped out in front of him with one of the best defensive forwards of his generation. That player being none other than two-time Selke Trophy-winner Aleksander Barkov out there wearing down the opponents.
Moreover, that’s not to mention their incredibly deep defence core. It was a reason Edmonton pushed Florida so deep in the series, as it was quite possibly the battle of the most consistent, top-six defencemen in the league last year. For Florida, having Oliver Ekman-Larsson as a third pair defenceman was important. Also, rolling out the likes of Brandon Montour, Aaron Ekblad, or Gustav Forsling are guys that compete with any in the league. They did that well, shutting down two of the best players in the game in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
The Panthers 2024 Off-season Saga
It is somewhat commonplace that a team that makes the final, especially in the salary cap era, has a pretty significant flux of players throughout the offseason. Moreover, this year’s Panthers are no exception. Even if they are not the biggest names, it was Florida’s speed, power, and depth that made them so feisty on the puck and difficult to play against last year. So, will the changes to the roster limit their ability to dominate the league, like they could at times last season? Likely not. All their big stars are back at it. Well, one possible exclusion for ‘all their stars‘ is Brandon Montour, he signed with the Seattle Kraken for seven-years and $50M.
Furthermore, the Panthers were so deep as a roster, lots of names are gone, and it seems like not so many are there to replace them. That means the replacements will have to come from internal growth. Gone are the likes of Ekman-Larsson, Nick Cousins, Kyle Okposo, Anthony Stolarz, Vladimir Tarasenko, Steven Lorentz, and Ryan Lomberg. So, realistically quite the laundry list, however, as we referred, not necessarily their top-end guys. They did bring in a few replacements, to help with the team’s depth. Tomas Nosek or A.J. Greer are examples of those type of players. Assuming their top-two lines return to form, there’s enough of the depth pieces remaining that will carry this team through to contention again in 2024-25.
Projected Lineup Starting with the Four Forward Lines
| LW | C | RW |
| RODRIGUES | BARKOV | REINHART |
| TKACHUK | BENNETT | VERHAEGHE |
| LUOSTARINEN | LUNDELL | GREER |
| BOQVIST | NOSEK | ENTWISTLE |
Top Six Forward Group
If you study Florida’s top-six forward lines from last year, you’ll see eight players returning that cycled in those lines. The only notable omission would be Nick Cousins, but more so from a time spent within the role perspective, not particularly noteworthy for his production. This top-six, and if we include Luostarinen and Lundell, is very strong, and no reason to expect anything less than what we seen from them last year. Remarkably, if you average out those eight players statistics from last year, you would have a player with 78 games played, with 25 goals and 35 assists for 60 points. When you are as stingy defensively as the Panthers take pride in being, it’s no wonder you walked away with the crown last season.
The Bottom Six Guys
The Panthers bottom-six did see some turnover from the cup team. Maybe the most notable is the absence of Tarasenko on the third line. However, he was a mid-season acquisition, and you could conceivably make a similar move if it is felt to be necessitated by this roster’s play. The two key parts, who we mentioned above, Luostarinen and Lundell are back, and should continue to improve as they develop. The rest of the group each bring their own intangible, whether it is toughness like A.J. Greer, and some skill like Tomas Nosek. Therefore, the turnover is probably a good thing to bring in fresh troops, who are willing to give it that little extra effort to prove themselves.
The 2024-25 Florida Panthers Preview on Defence
| LD | RD |
| FORSLING | EKBLAD |
| KULIKOV | MIKKOLA |
| SCHMIDT | BOQVIST |
Number 7: Uvis Balinskis
Top Four
The top-two defensive pairings for the Panthers do have some uncertainty. In fact, it is probably the most uncertainty the roster has as a whole. It may very well be a bit unfair, but there is one specific and valid reason for doubting this part of the Panthers roster. That reason being, whether or not Dmitry Kulikov is a serviceable, top-four defenceman. Niko Mikkola and he played a fair bit together last year, but it would have been considered in a third-pairing role more so.
Gone from last year as we mentioned in Montour, who most regularly paired up with Mikkola. That pairing served as their number-two pair last season. Kulikov did play well last year, appearing in 76 games. However, he was only skating on average 16:31 a night. At 33, it is difficult to know what to expect out of Kulikov. Perhaps, similar to last year, it will be a bit of a revolving door of defence pairs, until they find exactly what fits. Overall, it just feels as though this year’s version of the top-four, without Montour, will not be quite as strong.
Bottom Pair
The bottom pair, again, doesn’t shift to a weakness against other teams, but compared to last year, it won’t be quite so strong. Last year, this was predominantly represented by Kulikov and Ekman-Larsson. Therefore, it was as strong of a third-pairing as there was league-wide. Now, it seems as though Kulikov has been promoted, while Ekman-Larsson plays with the interdivisional opponent, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Management did do fine at making the necessary adjustments to address the departures. In contrast, it is slightly behind last year’s depth. Nate Schmidt, Adam Boqvist, and Uvis Balinskis will do well to push each other for ice time, and maybe some top-four rotation. Schmidt would be the lead candidate for that opportunity.
Goalies
- Bobrovsky
- Knight
The Florida Panthers were set in net in 2023-24, and the same can be said for 2024-25. Sergei Bobrovsky, by adding a Stanley Cup ring, is definitely one of the greatest goaltenders of his generation. Yes, the overlap with those like Roberto Luongo, Martin Brodeur, Marc-Andre Fleury does make it complicated, however, he has had a remarkable career in his own right. More relevantly, even at his age, as we mentioned briefly earlier, he still gets it done.
In addition, it appears that Spencer Knight is back. He’s struggled recently, including a stint in the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program. However, he and the Panthers would love nothing more than if he could put that behind him, and play for the future. Knight is extremely talented, and if he can regain his form, that he showed three years ago now, as a 20-year-old, the Panthers are going to be very strong in net. The hockey community is rooting for Knight to come back strong. Fortunately, as a backup to Bobrovsky, it won’t be a super high-pressure situation.
Two Panthers Players to Watch in 2024-25 and First Up Evan Rodrigues
Okay, the front-runner is Spencer Knight, but since we just went into detail on him, let’s chat about two others. The first player to watch is someone who gets to play with Aleksander Barkov, on a top line role. This has not been a common occurrence for Rodrigues throughout his career. Moreover, one thing that Barkov has been known for is elevating the production of those around him. Barkov has never been a huge scorer, but players like Tkachuk or Jonathan Huberdeau before him, enjoyed big seasons with him as their pivot. Rodrgieus has been around a two-points per 60-minutes player throughout his career. With some extra space, that Barkov will undoubtedly create, and more opportunity, such as power play time, he could combine a bump in shooting percentage into a productive campaign. In terms of specific point projections, it’s not inconceivable for Rodrigues to hit 50 or higher, given those factors we referenced.
Next Panther to Watch and Niko Mikkola
Mikkola is an interesting piece for the Panthers, because he would like to replicate last season. However, he will be doing it without his regular D-partner, Montour. Can Kulikov, or someone else, provide the type of steady play that Mikkola’s game anticipates? He had a very steady 2024-25, and the Panthers need some level of repeatability from his results. He plays a heavy, just over 20-minutes a game. Additionally, he had 198 hits last year and killed penalties regularly. What that means, is that his play should be fairly transferable.
The Best Part of Our Preview and the Prediction For 2024-2025 Florida Panthers
The Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup in 2024. Therefore, anything short of that, as defending cup champions, would technically be a disappointment. On the other hand, players like Tarasenko and Ekman-Larsson as depth pieces truly paints a picture for how deep the team was last year. Their 2024-25 roster does not have that depth, that is to say yet. Who knows what could transpire as the season progresses. Maybe an opportunity presents itself around the trade deadline, like it did with Tarasenko specifically. The team could definitely ramp up for another deep playoff run.
As mentioned, their big unknowns are their defence and goalies, and that’s still pretty solid. Moreover, a key injury to the forward group, might hold more significance than it did last year given the depth. Overall with the amount of returning stars, on forward, defence, and in net, the Panthers remain the class of the Eastern Conference. It might be close, but they should still maintain, and go on to capture the division. Whether or not they repeat as cup champs, really depends on those intangibles we have covered. In any sense, look for them to be a very competitive team in the Eastern Conference.
Prediction: First in the Atlantic
Main Photo: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports
