{"id":461203,"date":"2026-02-17T20:37:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T20:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/461203\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T20:37:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T20:37:34","slug":"panthers-evan-rodrigues-name-resurfaces-in-rumor-mill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/461203\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers\u2019 Evan Rodrigues\u2019 Name Resurfaces in Rumor Mill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Florida<\/a>
The Florida Panthers find themselves in an unfamiliar position. Sitting eight points back of a Wild Card berth, the team has only a 15.5% chance of making the playoffs<\/a>, per MoneyPuck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead of buying a top-four defenseman and an iconic two-way forward and leader (Seth Jones and Brad Marchand) to help for a playoff push as they did last year, it sounds like the team will be willing to sell off a couple of pieces at this year’s deadline, come March 6th.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the weekend, we heard about physical forward and pending UFA AJ Greer being a potential trade piece<\/a>. Another name being thrown out there is one we heard making the rounds last summer, in third-line forward Evan Rodrigues.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old still has another year remaining on his four-year deal with a $3 million AAV. But with their salary cap situation, it’s doubtful the Cats will be in a position to offer him any kind of extension when that contract is up. Getting something for him now, giving a team two playoff runs with the versatile, two-way, hard-working forward, might be the wise path to take.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Panthers are going to have some tough choices to make, Jason Gregor said on DFO Rundown.<\/a><\/p>\n

I look at them on their backend, and they’ve got everybody signed for multiple years. Evan Rodrigues is another guy that I think they would consider moving, to be honest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rodrigues was held up last summer as a player that teams around the NHL were zeroing in on in trade talks. After signing all three of their big-name free agents at the time (Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad and Marchand), it appeared that\u00a0losing Rodriguez “might be the price Florida has to pay.” <\/p>\n

They didn’t pay it last summer, but at next month’s trade deadline, they certainly might.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rodrigues is having his usual nice season as a secondary scorer for the Panthers in the bottom six, with 10 goals and 25 points through 56 games. At 17:15 minutes per game, he’s logging the highest\u00a0average ice time of his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He arrived in Florida for the 2023-24 season, and immediately had an impact, helping the team to two straight Stanley Cup triumphs. He put up solid production throughout the playoffs both years, posting 30 points and a +9 plus\/minus rating over those two postseason runs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo: \u00a9 Sam Navarro-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers find themselves in an unfamiliar position. Sitting eight points back of a Wild Card berth,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5102],"tags":[62,57,5141,5,181,4,465,550,106,60,107,549,548,546,547,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-461203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-panthers","10":"tag-floridapanthers","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-hockey-news","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-nhl-draft","15":"tag-nhl-free-agency","16":"tag-nhl-news","17":"tag-nhl-playoffs","18":"tag-nhl-rumors","19":"tag-nhl-teams","20":"tag-nhl-trade-deadline","21":"tag-nhl-trade-rumors","22":"tag-nhl-trades","23":"tag-panthers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116087898544063234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}