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What We Learned: Panthers well-positioned for leap forward

GettyImages-524121020
GettyImages-524121020

(Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.)

Last season the Florida Panthers enjoyed something of a fluke run of success.

Even the best teams don’t generally win 12 in a row, but that streak took the Panthers from 14-12-4 (a pace for 82 points on the season) to 26-12-4. They ended up winning the Atlantic Division with 103 points, having racked up 25 of those in less than a month.

Pretty impressive, but there were holes in the Panthers game that portended trouble ahead. Low shot totals, underwater possession, etc. Strong talent on the first two lines, a great top pairing on defense, and he’s-still-doing-it talent in net from Roberto Luongo buoyed them anyway, before they eventually lost in the first round of the playoffs, to a good Islanders club in six games.

Since that time, the Panthers have gone about plugging obvious holes in the lineup and getting all the right housekeeping done. Since the week of the draft, they’ve added Keith Yandle, Jason Demers, and James Reimer via free agency, and traded for an improving young defenseman in Mark Pysyk via trade (in exchange for Dmitry Kulikov, a right-shot D who’s almost as good, but a lot more expensive). That’s in addition to re-signing their own RFAs and UFAs, including Aaron Ekblad. Now one really has to wonder how far this club can go.

It’s also worth noting that while the Panthers were a poor possession team for most of the year, their final 25 games of the season — usually a pretty good predictor of postseason success — was much better. During that stretch, they carried an adjusted possession number of more than 51 percent, more or less in line with what San Jose did for the entire year. That’s pretty solid and potentially shows that the glut of young players on last year’s team improved as time went on.

It was pretty clear, to be honest, that Florida’s biggest problems last year revolved around a relatively shallow blue line. It was Ekblad/Campbell-and-hope-we-don’t-get-scored-on, and at times things looked really white-knuckle. There was a good chunk of the year where those two were split up, and both suffered mightily, as did the team as a whole. So great was their power together that it almost didn’t matter that their No. 3 defenseman by TOI was Kulikov, who really didn’t have a great year by his own standards or, really, anyone’s.

Campbell, of course, is gone now. And it’s worth noting that Ekblad, who just signed the big-money, long-term extension we’ve all been expecting for quite some time, played nearly all of his 5-on-5 minutes last season with the two defensemen Florida shed this offseason: Kulikov and Brian Campbell. The less said about his time with Kulikov the better (48.4 percent SZV-adjusted corsi), but when he and Campbell were together, the Panthers were generally a juggernaut (56.4 percent).

How Ekblad reacts to losing a player of Campbell’s quality obviously remains to be seen. Campbell played tough minutes and was one of the best relative possession drivers in the league (6.1 percent!), so his loss was going to be at least somewhat troublesome for any team. Obviously you can say a lot of his effectiveness came from playing more than a third of his 5-on-5 minutes with a player like Ekblad, but he got a lot of minutes without him as well, and never ended up underwater with anyone, save for Willie Mitchell, who was on his last legs. But even then Campbell dragged Mitchell to a significantly better performance than anyone else on the team.

Campbell is tough or perhaps even impossible to replace as a singular presence on that blue line, but Florida may be able to do it by committee. Lots of people laughed about that Yandle contract ($6.35 million AAV until he’s 37, the latter aspect of which isn’t ideal) but it seems public perception on Yandle doesn’t really line up with what he actually does on the ice, thanks to his bizarre time in New York.

Yes he got a pretty easy ride from Alain Vigneault, but that’s not something you can really hold against the player; he’s not calling his own number for line changes. More to the point, though, he dominated that softer competition to a ludicrous extent. Even adjusting for his usage, the score, and the venue, Yandle was a strong possession player (plus-2.1 relative corsi) who also drove goal-scoring, as you might expect given his skillset. And that ignores the huge scoring impact he has on the power play, an area in which Florida was below league average last season.

The expected decline in their 5-on-5 shooting percentage, which was second-highest in the league, could be offset by getting a better power play, especially because Florida drew a lot more penalties than they committed last year.

Then there’s the addition of Demers on Saturday at an almost unbelievably low price point: only $4.5 million for just five years. With the exception of Campbell, who was clearly not going anywhere but Chicago anyway, Demers was clearly the best blue liner available in free agency. Over the last two seasons on a team not exactly known for playing stout defense, Demers has done just about everything well, and has been a bit unlucky in terms of the puck actually going in the net. His relative expected goals-for number outperforms the actual one by almost triple (plus-3.7 expected versus minus-1.4 actual) and a regression toward the former number is probably coming. That, too, would be good news for Florida.

Pysyk was handled by Dan Bylsma in much the same way as Yandle was by Vigneault — lightly — but again, the numbers are encouraging. Maybe Gerard Gallant can’t deploy him on the second pairing full-time yet but the numbers suggest he could handle lower-level competition. And if not, can we maybe interest you in Alex Petrovic instead?

In general, it would be reasonable to expect that the collective impact of the defensemen going out this summer — Campbell, Kulikov, Eric Gudbranson and Mitchell — was overall somewhat positive. Campbell is still so good even at his advanced age (37) that his loss stings, but Kulikov and Gudbranson were merely okay, and quite expensive. Mitchell was simply not good at all.

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of reason to believe that the continued growth of Ekblad, plus Demers, Yandle, Pysyk, should at least replace the collective impact of the four above if not improve upon it. It’s also possible that rookie Michael Matheson is a good third-pair option as well.

While things are mostly status-quo up front, at least insofar as no real impact additions were made, the maturation of guys like Alex Barkov, Vince Trochek, Nick Bjugstad, and Jonathan Huberdeau should continue apace. It’s also easy to like the addition of Jonathan Marchessault, who looks like he could be a good depth forward after just one year as a part-time NHLer, and is still only 25. In his career, he’s nearly 0.9 points per game in the AHL.

As for Reimer in net, well, Luongo’s not going to be around forever, and while Al Montoya was a very good backup last season (.919), the odds Reimer can replicate what a future Hall of Famer can still do in his late-30s does on a nightly basis for a few years or more are greater than Montoya’s. If it’s a 1a/1b scenario, that’s a very good tandem for the Panthers.

So in the end you have to say that while Florida was obviously lucky to clear 100 points last year, but they did it with a 102.1 PDO and a soft division. The improvements they’ve made in just a few weeks, along with the improvement-by-age of all the guys in their early 20s, really could be enough to get them back above the century mark again next year.

The Panthers seem like they’re becoming a reliably good NHL team, instead of just relying on bounces.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: This is the big signing, folks. The Ducks are back!

Arizona Coyotes: Yes, this is still very gross.

Boston Bruins: This is one of those “pray for a compliance buyout” contracts we’re starting to see now. Another lockout could happen in 2018!

Buffalo Sabres: Yeah you know who it’s bad for when Evander Kane is repeatedly accused of abusing women? Tim Murray says the answer is it’s the organization and Evander Kane.

Calgary Flames: The Flames are talking about playing Troy Brouwer on a line with Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau. Brouwer’s career high in points is 43. Gaudreau’s is 64, as a rookie. Monahan’s is 34, and that’s when he was 18. They both average more goals per 82 games than Brouwer’s career high (27.6 for Monahan, 28.2 for Gaudreau, 25 for Brouwer). There’s a huge skill gap here. Playing them together would be ill-advised.

Carolina Hurricanes: Eric Staal’s house in Raleigh is out of control. Maybe Lee Stempniak can move in

Chicago: I still can’t believe the deal they got for Campbell. Man oh man. The benefits of being the only place a guy would sign, I guess.

Colorado Avalanche: Oh just trade him already then.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Boy the Blue Jackets were in a big ol’ rush to get prospect camp wrapped up. Most teams haven’t even started theirs, and Columbus is like, “We’re done here.”

Dallas Stars: At this point, I’m not sure that the answer to this question is a yes.

Detroit Red Wings: Just because you have a ton of cap space doesn’t mean you need to make several of the worst signings in the free agency period.

Edmonton Oilers: Peter Chiarelli made one middling blue line addition (giving up a top-3 or 4 left wing in the sport to get it) and now he’s like, “Actually our previously atrocious defense is good now.” Ah yes.

Florida Panthers: Not too many “second days of free agency” in recent memory are going to top Florida’s.

Los Angeles Kings: The Kings made a few quietly nice little signings so far. That’s really all they can afford.

Minnesota Wild: Really curious to see what the Wild are actually like next year. I’m still not sure the roster is good enough to be of national consequence, but they’ve clearly improved this offseason.

Montreal Canadiens: Umm, okay?

Nashville Predators: My dude likes the Preds.

Let's go!!!!!! ????

A video posted by P.K. Subban (@subbanator) on Jul 3, 2016 at 7:08am PDT

New Jersey Devils: Still a long way, though, isn’t it?

New York Islanders: This could be a really good signing for the Islanders. Parenteau can still play.

New York Rangers: Pavel Buchnevich will “get every chance to show he does not belong” on the NHL roster next year, which is a good indicator that he’s on the opening-day roster unless something goes horribly wrong.

Ottawa Senators: When you’re as bad as Ottawa maybe this isn’t a great thing but it’s better than spending money just to spend it. Not that Melnyk would do that, but y’know.

Philadelphia Flyers: Dale Weise is the big UFA pickup. I dunno.

Pittsburgh Penguins: This still seems very weird to me, but okay.

San Jose Sharks: Well Boedkker is, uh, fast at least.

St. Louis Blues: So far I like the Blues’ summer, but they do need another top-six forward.

Tampa Bay Lightning: This is getting silly. How is a team that really hasn’t signed anyone having such a good offseason?

Toronto Maple Leafs: What is going on in Toronto? They haven’t signed anyone good.

Vancouver Canucks: The fact that this is on the AHL’s website tells you a lot about the Canucks’ Saturday.

Washington Capitals: If the Capitals are actually improving their depth, that’s bad news for the rest of the East.

Winnipeg Jets: Mostly housekeeping for the Jets this summer, and with Laine in the fold maybe that’s all they need.

Gold Star Award

Kevin Durant. (AP)
Kevin Durant. (AP)

Kevin Durant come to Boston please that is what I need after the Al Horford deal.

Minus of the Weekend

60127190
60127190

Things in hockey are about to get very very very very very slow.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Year

User “maplepred” is affected by the heat.

To preds,
Stepan and Nash (%40 retained)

To Rangers,
Jarnkrok, Wilson, ribeiro, first round pick and Austin Watson.

Let’s go!!!!

Signoff

You know, Fox turned into a hardcore sex channel so gradually, I didn’t even notice.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)