{"id":545798,"date":"2026-04-07T16:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545798\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T16:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:13:14","slug":"bill-zito-unsure-on-off-season-changes-for-florida-panthers-after-missing-playoffs-hopes-to-re-sign-sergei-bobrovsky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545798\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Zito unsure on off-season changes for Florida Panthers after missing playoffs, hopes to re-sign Sergei Bobrovsky"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida Panthers<\/a> will enter the off-season early this year after\u00a0making\u00a0three straight trips to the Stanley Cup,\u00a0which saw the team playing into June.<\/p>\n

Panthers general manager Bill Zito believes the team was a victim of both fatigue and bad luck this season as injuries piled up from both wear and tear and fluke incidents.<\/p>\n

Florida spent the entire season playing without captain Aleksander Barkov<\/a> after he tore his ACL and MCL in training camp, and saw key players such as Matthew Tkachuk<\/a>, Brad Marchand<\/a> and Seth Jones<\/a> miss time throughout the year with injuries.<\/p>\n

With almost all of their core players under contract for next season, it\u2019s unclear whether the Panthers will make any major changes\u00a0this off-season\u00a0or simply bet on a healthy roster being able to bounce back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too early to tell,\u201d Zito told TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun in The Athletic of the team\u2019s potential off-season roster moves<\/a>. \u201cBut it\u2019s also about availability, right? You can say, \u2018I need three Maseratis,\u2019 but there are none out there, there\u2019s none for sale, there\u2019s no one that will trade you theirs, so you\u2019d better have a Plan B.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re not alone. But I do think it\u2019s an interesting dynamic now \u2014 a few years on this job \u2014 where you break down your roster, and you say, \u2018We need this. We need that.\u2019 Yeah, OK, where are you going to get it? So, it\u2019s a never-ending puzzle. We\u2019ll just continue to grind and try to make good decisions.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The lone exception to their core players being under contract is star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a>, who is slated to reach unrestricted free agency on July 1 as his seven-year, $70 million contract comes to an end.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old netminder has a 27-22-1 record this season with a .878 save percentage and a 3.05 goals-against average. He has never before posted a save percentage below .899 over his NHL career, which began with the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> in 2010-11.<\/p>\n

Daniil Tarasov<\/a>, who is also a pending UFA, has spent the season as Bobrovsky\u2019s backup, going 10-15-2 with a .892 save percentage and a 3.22 GAA. Florida traded Bobrovsky\u2019s once-heir apparent Spencer Knight<\/a> in their deal to acquire Jones last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just something we\u2019ll sort out after the season,\u201d Zito said of Bobrovsky\u2019s future. \u201cI\u2019d like to keep him. I hope we can. We\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers are set to enter the off-season with $15.5 million in cap space, per PuckPedia, with 18 of 23 roster spots filled for next season.<\/p>\n

Florida was eliminated from postseason contention late last week and currently sit with the sixth-worst record in the NHL. If the Panthers land\u00a0a\u00a0top-10 pick following the draft lottery, the team will be able to keep their first rounder that had also been bound for Chicago in the Jones deal. The team would then move their 2027 pick unprotected to the Blackhawks and their 2028 pick unprotected to the Boston Bruins<\/a> as part of their trade for Brad Marchand<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would give us the benefit of reaping the benefit of this unfortunate year where you get that higher pick and we would still be able to keep it,\u201d Zito said of potentially having a first rounder this year.<\/p>\n

Florida will visit the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> in the first of their five remaining games in the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers will enter the off-season early this year after\u00a0making\u00a0three straight trips to the Stanley Cup,\u00a0which saw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[4759,62,57,33779,5141,5,4,63,34394],"class_list":{"0":"post-545798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-panthers","11":"tag-florida-panthers-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-13","12":"tag-floridapanthers","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-panthers","16":"tag-sergei-bobrovsky-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8475683"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116364314061848909","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545798","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=545798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}