Breaking down Florida Panthers’ Opening Night roster with season opener on the horizon
The Florida Panthers’ roster for puck drop on Opening Night is here.
The team on Tuesday submitted its initial roster for its season opener against the New York Islanders on Thursday at UBS Arena.
Some quick notables on the roster:
▪ With the Panthers pushed up toward the NHL’s salary cap, Florida only has 20 healthy players, the bare minimum, on its active roster as of Tuesday — 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goaltenders. Winger Anthony Duclair, who underwent surgery in early July to repair his Achilles tendon, is beginning the season on long-term injured reserve, which frees up $3 million of salary cap until his expected return midseason. Forwards Zac Dalpe and Justin Sourdif as well as defenseman Matt Kiersted are also starting the season on injured reserve.
▪ Six of Florida’s 20 players are new to the roster this season: Forwards Rudolf Balcers, Nick Cousins, Matthew Tkachuk and Colin White as well as defensemen Josh Mahura and Marc Staal. The Panthers claimed Mahura off waivers on Monday.
▪ Based on training camp practices, the Panthers’ projected forward lines to begin the season are as follows: Aleksander Barkov centering Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart as the top line; Sam Bennett centering Tkachuck and Balcers on the second line; Anton Lundell centering Eetu Luostarinen and White on the third line; and Cousins centering Ryan Lomberg and Patric Hornqvist on the fourth line.
Coach Paul Maurice said he has “a lot of confidence” in the top line, specifically noting the chemistry between Verhaeghe and Barkov while adding that he anticipates a jump in production from Reinhart by being on that line.
“Pretty much everything else after that is brand new,” Maurice said, “so we’ve got to give this a little bit of time.”
▪ As for the defenseman pairings, Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad are the top pairing, Stall and Brandon Montour and Mahura and Radko Gudas likely being the other two tandems.
▪ Forward Eric Stall, who was with the Panthers for training camp on a professional tryout and impressed, is not on the roster at the moment because of salary cap implications.
The full roster
Forwards: Rudolfs Balcers, Aleksander Barkov, Sam Bennett, Nick Cousins, Patric Hornqvist, Ryan Lomberg, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen, Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe, Colin White
Defensemen: Aaron Ekblad, Gustav Forsling, Radko Gudas, Josh Mahura, Brandon Montour, Marc Staal
Goaltenders: Sergei Bobrovsky, Spencer Knight
Injured and/or Non-Roster: forward Zac Dalpe, forward Anthony Duclair, defenseman Matt Kiersted, forward Justin Sourdif.
