{"id":470914,"date":"2026-02-25T08:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T08:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470914\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T08:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T08:32:18","slug":"can-bill-zito-panthers-still-conjure-magic-for-playoff-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470914\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Bill Zito, Panthers still conjure magic for playoff run?"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT LAUDERDALE \u2014 By Sunday night, even as the gold-medal celebration swirled in Milan, Bill Zito began moving on. This always was the bargain. Team USA\u2019s assistant general manager helped construct a generational hockey win against Canada in the Olympics \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so exciting, so humbling,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2026 and now became the Florida Panthers general manager again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we get guys back home?\u201d he began thinking. \u201cWhat\u2019s are we doing? What\u2019s happening? Guys who had left are trickling back into town \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several Panthers players were making that overnight turn from the Olympics to the NHL, too, even as Matthew Tkachuk spent an extra Monday night with U.S. teammates celebrating on South Beach. A double-decker bus. A late-night rendition of \u201cThe Star-Spangled Banner\u201d in the nightclub, E11EVEN. All good. All deserved, as Zito knew.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a great conversation with (U.S. and Vegas Knights center) Jack Eichel, and he said, \u2018What do you think of this whole thing?\u2019 \u201d Zito said. \u201cI said, \u2018What do you think?\u2019 He said, \u2018I think we\u2019re a team. I\u2019ve known these guys since \u2026\u2019 \u2014 we talked about how long and maybe it was 2010 with the U.S. developmental team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at champions, you find a team every time. How hard is it for any of us \u2014 a sports agency or law firm or guy with a company \u2014 to build a great team.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was the overlap Zito recognized between the U.S. team and, \u00a0\u201cthose guys down the hall,\u2019\u2019 Zito said, throwing a thumb toward the Panthers locker room.<\/p>\n

By Tuesday, Latvian forward Sandis Vilmanis was the first Olympian back at Panthers practice. The Finnish Panthers, the Canadian Panthers and Tkachuck \u2014 seven players in all \u2014 played through last weekend and so won\u2019t join the team until the Thursday morning skate, just hours before the must-win game against Toronto.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right. Must-win. If it\u2019s odd to say the two-time champs skate for these stakes in Game 58, it\u2019s odder still to say Friday\u2019s game against Buffalo also seems like a must-win game, too.<\/p>\n

Both games are at home. Both Toronto and Buffalo are ahead of the Panthers in the standings \u2014 and Toronto isn\u2019t in the playoffs now, either.<\/p>\n

The good news is finally some cavalry is coming. Defenseman Dmitri Kulikov and fourth-liners Johan Gadovich and Tomas Nosek, out for months, are practicing and could play again starting Thursday. Star defenseman Seth Jones is practicing in a non-contact yellow jersey, suggesting he\u2019s close to returning.<\/p>\n

That leaves only Aleksander Barkov out until maybe the playoffs. If there are playoffs. Maybe it\u2019s all a lesson in the difficulty of three-peat. Maybe that\u2019s conclusions we end up with after this bad-health, bad-luck season. Maybe the March 6 trade deadline will tell just what the Panthers\u2019 realistic goal is this season.<\/p>\n

Two Herculean tasks face the Panthers now. The first is playing 25 games in 49 days. Every team plays something similar. Not every team needs to win like the Panthers, though. They sit with 61 points and have to climb over five teams to get a playoff spot.<\/p>\n

Boston and the New York Islanders currently hold the seventh and final eighth playoff spot with 69 points. The Panthers play at the Islanders on Sunday. Another must win? The Panthers, you see, don\u2019t just have to win, but can\u2019t lose against certain teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a veteran team that clearly understands what\u2019s ahead of us,\u2019\u2019 coach Paul Maurice said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have 25 games left. We have 25, one games left. You really narrow your focus and don\u2019t get ahead of yourself. Like the playoffs, don\u2019t carry a loss into the next day. Cut it off and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

It all starts up again for the Panthers after something special ended for a couple of them. The beauty was more than just winning the gold after years of work, as Zito saw it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go through life and look back with appreciation on certain events and certain opportunities when we reflect on them,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u00a0\u201cIn this instance, it was in the moment. We appreciated the things that were happening while they were happening. That made it a little deeper experience. \u2018Wow, were we lucky.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing was an appreciation, I\u2019m saying this sincerely, of what we have here. Of the similarities and how special our group is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers team that Zito has built is everything you want in an organization, minus some health this season. The question now is if there\u2019s any magic left to help this season on the brink.<\/p>\n

\"FloridaFlorida Panthers president of Hockey Operations & general manager Bill Zito speaks during a news conference at the Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday. (Amy Beth Bennett \/ South Florida Sun Sentinel)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE \u2014 By Sunday night, even as the gold-medal celebration swirled in Milan, Bill Zito began moving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5102],"tags":[62,57,5141,5,1180,4,63,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-470914","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-latest-headlines","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-panthers","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116130346149679430","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470914","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=470914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}