FORT LAUDERDALE — The Olympics are over, NHL teams return to play tonight, and the trade deadline is just over a week away. When it comes to the Florida Panthers, this could be the most important week of their season.
It will certainly be their most impactful one.
Speaking to the media less than 24 hours after he landed at Miami International with the rest of Team USA, Florida general manager Bill Zito said his team has options when it comes to the NHL trade deadline.
How the Panthers come out of the Olympic break will decide which way things go.
Florida comes into today eight points out of the playoffs with 25 games remaining.
The trade deadline is next Friday at 3 p.m. Florida plays five games before it hits.
“This is obviously a very important week,’’ Zito said. “We may have easy answers, or easy questions to answer, at the end of it. Or we may have real difficult ones. I don’t know. I will be watching every game.”
There is little room for error if the Panthers are to rally and storm into the postseason enabling them to defend their Stanley Cup championship for a third season.
Only the next few days will determine whether Florida starts adding — or subtracting.
With 61 points in the standings, the Panthers probably need 39 or 40 of the available 50 points remaining.
A few losses before the trade deadline would likely seal their fate.
So, what if the Panthers go 2-3 before the deadline and decide to trade off some assets?
What would that look like?
The Panthers are the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions and, after last offseason, have a plan to keep their banner days going into the next decade.
This is not a team that is going to be rebuilt.
Some tweaks here and there? That’s more like it.
It may not be out of the question that the Panthers could be both buyers and sellers at the deadline if a player they think could help them in the future is available.
Florida has a handful of pending free agents (Sergei Bobrovsky, A.J. Greer, Jeff Petry among them) and have to make some salary cap moves anyway once Seth Jones returns from his fractured collarbone.
That could come perhaps as early as the upcoming road trip.
One option would be to place Sasha Barkov on full long-term injured reserve to gain the remainder of his $10 million salary cap hit. Florida is currently only getting $3.8 million off the cap.
Doing this would prevent Barkov from playing at all this season.
Barkov hopes to play if the Panthers get a round or two into the playoffs, but if making the playoffs looks even more far-fetched in the coming days than it does right now — and the Panthers have a chance to add a player for next season and beyond — perhaps that’s a move they make.
The Panthers have been holding onto that card not wanting to tell Barkov he would have no chance of playing at all.
“There is any number of scenarios that may present themselves,” Zito said before going through the different scenarios.
“We just have to be poised to make decisions for each of the fact patterns that are presented to us. And we will.’’
The Panthers appear focused on making the most of this final group of games.
Although the Panthers have 25 games left, they are — as Paul Maurice put it — looking at things from the old ‘one-game-at-a-time’ vantage point.
Truth is, the team cannot look at things with the wide-angle lens. They are eight points back and cannot make that gap up in a game or two. Perhaps even five.
But if they can string some wins together, well, who knows?
“This is a veteran team that clearly understands what’s ahead of us,’’ Maurice said. “We don’t have 25 games left; we have 25 one-games left. Just narrow your focus and not get ahead of yourself. It’s like a playoff series: You can’t carry your losses into the next night, and there is no room to take a breath after a win. Just cut it off and really focus on the next day.’’
ON DECK: GAME No. 58
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS at FLORIDA PANTHERS
