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NHL Season Preview: Florida Panthers

Jon Posted Sep 19th 2008 8:00AM by Jon "J.P." Press (author feed)
Filed under: Panthers, NHL General


Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Keith Ballard, D (Trade-PHX); Nick Boynton, D (Trade-PHX); Peter DeBoer, Head Coach; Bryan McCabe, D (Trade-TOR); Cory Stillman, LW/RW (FA-OTT)

Who's Out: Jassen Cullimore, D (UFA); Magnus Johansson, D (FA-Europe); Olli Jokinen, C (Trade-PHX); Branislav Mezei, D (FA-Europe); Steve Montador, D (FA-ANA); Jozef Stumpel, C (FA-Europe); Mike Van Ryn, D (Trade-TOR)

What's Changed: More than you might think.

Gone is the captain and somewhat frightening face of the franchise over the past seven playoff-less seasons, Olli Jokinen, a player who has become synonymous with losing in the NHL as he is the current holder of the League's longest personal playoff drought. Ready to debut behind the Panther bench is a head coach who has compiled a 539-248-60-31 record in the Ontario Hockey League over the past 13 seasons, winning two OHL and one CHL Coach of the Year awards along the way. Out with the losing, in with the winning... on paper, at least. But Peter DeBoer will have his work cut out for him, as he inherits a Florida squad that allowed the second-most shots on goal in the League last season and finished 20th in goals scored (and traded away its leading scorer).
Continue Reading NHL Season Preview: Florida Panthers

PuckToons: Can You Teach an Old Maple Leaf New Tricks?

Earl SleekPosted Sep 4th 2008 2:00PM by Earl Sleek (author feed)
Filed under: Maple Leafs, Panthers, NHL General

Every Thursday, Earl Sleek will conspire with his pen and scanner to bring you another installment of PuckToons. Hopefully you will find these amusing, relevant, well-drawn, or you're a person who is tolerant towards mediocrity.

I thought I'd turn my focus eastward this week, and make fun of new Florida Panther Bryan McCabe, who was traded this week along with a 4th round pick for defenseman Mike Van Ryn.

From my west coast perspective, McCabe is a defenseman who took some unfair heat from the Toronto media before he was traded, but still, he is a guy who did score on his own net in the closing seconds of overtime. That's never easy to live down, especially from hockey internet cartoonists who refuse to let it die.

For anyone looking for quality Florida Panthers blogs, I've recently started reading The Litter Box, which offers a cynical take on all Panther news. For a Leafs perspective, it's hard to go wrong with the level headed approach at Pension Plan Puppets. It should be an interesting year for both teams, it seems, as hockey fans don't anticipate either team qualifying for the postseason.

Will the US Dollar Sink the Salary Cap?

Tom LuongoPosted Aug 13th 2008 7:30AM by Tom Luongo (author feed)
Filed under: Coyotes, Flames, Oilers, Panthers, NHL General, NHL Economics


For those who follow the goings on in the financial markets closely, the recent rally in the US Dollar in terms of the trade-weighted index was quite an event, considering the extreme weakness of world's reserve currency over the past 7 years. The blast upwards to 76 on the index has some people proclaiming (and I'm not one of them, mind you) that the Bear Market in the dollar is over:
"This is the watershed week for the US dollar," said Marc Chandler, currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. "The magnitude of the dollar's moves and the breaking of key technical levels suggest that a major shift in the outlook towards the dollar is occurring as massive positions are adjusted." Other analysts described the widespread buying of dollars as "capitulation"
One might be wondering what this has to do with the NHL, and, as the title of this post suggests, the salary cap? Allow me to build my case slowly if you would. Considering that according to this article in the Toronto Star I found at this post by my old blogging buddy the EclectEcon over at the Sportseconomist.com, the driving force behind the >10% rise in the salary cap for each of the past two seasons was the strengthening Canadian Dollar:

The increase in the value of the Canadian dollar may be responsible for as much as half of the league's revenue gains since the NHL went through the lockout of 2004-05, say several sources familiar with NHL finances.

"If you take out the Canadian teams, which have done so well since the lockout largely because of the Canadian dollar, the league's revenues are actually only growing at a 2 per cent clip per year," says an executive with a U.S.-based NHL team, who requested anonymity.

With the Loonie averaging near parity with the $USD over the past year and having broken down out of the box formation that held it in check between $1.02 and $0.97US for the past 9 months to its closing price as of this writing to $0.938, there is a real possibility of a contraction in league revenues due to this breakdown of the exchange rate.

Continue Reading Will the US Dollar Sink the Salary Cap?

Jay Bouwmeester's Florida Farewell

Jes GolbezPosted Jul 29th 2008 12:36PM by Jes Golbez (author feed)
Filed under: Panthers, NHL General, NHL Free Agency, NHL Gossip, NHL Rumors

The Florida Panthers have been treading water under the playoff line for many seasons, hoping that their star players and high draft picks would carry them the way Crosby and Malkin carried Pittsburgh. Uber-stud defenseman Jay Bouwmeester has always been a key part of their plans to actually have a winning season.

The problem? The Florida Panthers have had a habit of pissing off their superstar players (just ask Olli Jokinen or Roberto Luongo), and Jay Bouwmeester is no exception to this rule.

The Panthers DID manage to avoid a bitter arbitration battle by signing Jay to a 1-year deal worth $4.9M, but at what price?

Really, this contract can't be seen as anything but a bad omen to success-starved Panthers fans. Yes, the Panthers saved a bit of coin by not having an arbitrator give the NHL's ice time leader a big one-year deal, but Bouwmeester will now be an unrestricted free agent next summer, instead of a Florida Panther for many seasons down the road. Is that really worth saving $800,000?

I'd have to think that Bouwmeester is quite tired of the Panthers' headless-chicken style of management and poor treatment of their star players, not to mention the bitter feelings left over from his 2006 arbitration hearing with the club.

After this latest contract fallout, you can pretty much safely bet money that Bouwmeester won't be in a Panthers uniform to start the 2009-10 season, and he'll tell Martin to "Shovel it!" when the Panthers try to re-open talks.

Panthers Rap Jokinen in Email to Season Ticket Holders

Eric McErlainPosted Jun 26th 2008 9:00AM by Eric McErlain (author feed)
Filed under: Miami, General NHL, Panthers, Coyotes

Whenever an organization trades a star player, it's inevitable that a significant slice of your fan base isn't going to be happy. And when the fan base isn't happy, it tends to stop buying tickets and merchandise, the life blood of any professional sports franchise.

That also means that you better be talking to your fans about what you're doing and why you're doing it. Then again, there are times when you can be too honest. Case in point, an email that Ryan Powers, an account executive for the parent company that owns the Florida Panthers, sent to season ticket holders explaining the team's decision to deal captain Olli Jokinen to the Phoenix Coyotes. After explaining what he felt that defensemen Nick Boynton and Keith Ballard brought to the team, Powers took a piece out of Jokinen. Here's how it reads in today's Miami Herald:
``Olli is a great player, but he has shown no leadership or improvement, and he never came through for us when we needed him the most. As a stat, Jokinen scored 5 goals in the last 24 games, this is not acceptable for a Captain of an NHL organization. He played with little heart or passion and never had the determination to reach the playoffs. This move was done for one reason only, to make the postseason and return the passion and energy into this arena.''
Need I remind everyone that Jokinen is Florida's all-time career leader in goals, assists and points? Fans tend to remember contributions like that.

The team has since apologized, but the damage has been done. And with news like this floating around, is it any surprise we've heard reports that Jay Bouwmeester wants out of Florida too?

The Bag Skate: Jagr Reportedly Gets Huge KHL Offer

Eric McErlainPosted Jun 25th 2008 6:39PM by Eric McErlain (author feed)
Filed under: General NHL, Rangers, Maple Leafs, Panthers, Lightning, Capitals, Canucks, Kings, Coyotes, Sharks, NHL Rumors, NHL Free Agency

Is it too hot for hockey? You may be right, but until the cold weather returns, welcome to The Bag Skate, FanHouse's afternoon roundup of everything that's happening on a typical offseason weekday.

We've heard about the rumors that Jaromir Jagr has an offer in his hip pocket to rejoin Avangard Omsk, the KHL team he played with during the lockout, and now, thanks to The Hockey Rodent, we have the first report of some solid numbers in the Czech press. I'm thinking Glen Sather is unmoved.

Though it has a fancy sounding name, don't be fooled: Finding Dulcinea boasts a good hockey blogger.

Barry Melrose wants you to know that the game hasn't passed him by. In fact, he now says that the game is right back where he left it. I'm thinking he's got plenty of people to convince otherwise. Elsewhere in Tampa, Bill Barber is moving on and Marc Denis has been bought out, while Brian Lawton is in.

Is hockey sexist? John MacKinnon says yes.
Continue Reading The Bag Skate: Jagr Reportedly Gets Huge KHL Offer

Hall Makes Way for Larionov and Anderson

Eric McErlainPosted Jun 17th 2008 10:11PM by Eric McErlain (author feed)
Filed under: General NHL, Rangers, Panthers, Wings, Oilers, Canucks, Sharks, NHL Hall of Fame

It's hard to add much that hasn't already been said about the election of Igor Larionov and Glenn Anderson to the Hockey Hall of Fame earlier today. The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but they grind nonetheless, eh?

Larionov's elevation is richly deserved, another in a long line of Soviet-era players who were lucky enough to get a chance to ply their trade in the NHL after the fall of the Iron Curtain. As Joe Pelletier wrote earlier this week, his linemates on those great Soviet teams, Sergei Makarov and Vladimir Krutov, are just as deserving, as are a number of their other teammates. Here's hoping the Hall throws off the last vestiges of the Cold War and makes way for a number of players who were not only stars of Soviet hockey, but in a very profound way, were also its prisoners.

When it comes to Anderson, his selection was long overdue. All these years, it seems as if the voters punished Anderson for merely being the least talented and prolific of his incredible Edmonton Oiler teammates -- as if that were some sort of sin.

In the end, you'd figure that any player of Anderson's obvious skill level (498 career goals and 4th place all-time in playoff scoring) that managed to get his name on the Stanley Cup six times might have earned the right to have the argument revolve around how you could possibly keep him out of the Hall. But considering the lesser lights that are enshrined there and the impenetrable politics that surround the Hall and its voters, I guess some questions are beyond rational explanation.

Senators, Panthers Hire Coaches

Bruce CiskiePosted Jun 13th 2008 5:35PM by Bruce Ciskie (author feed)
Filed under: Miami, General NHL, Senators, Panthers, Eastern

When replacing a coach who didn't get the job done, sports franchises have two general choices.

They could hire the fresh-faced coach who lacks a track record but has spent enough time learning the craft to be worth a look. They could also hire the experienced head coach who is only available because he failed with a different team.

Sometimes, you need the fresh face. Take the Anaheim Ducks as an example, as Randy Carlyle had never been an NHL head coach before taking over the Ducks and leading them to a Stanley Cup.

There are other times that the retread works better. Mike Keenan (Rangers in 1994) would potentially qualify, though it's hard to argue he was an abject failure in Philadelphia or Chicago. Peter Laviolette and Larry Robinson were a couple other retread hires who won Cups recently.

With that in mind, the Ottawa Senators went one direction, while the Florida Panthers took the other fork in the road. The Senators were reportedly close to hiring Peter DeBoer from Kitchener of the OHL. DeBoer certainly qualifies as a fresh face, having never been an NHL head coach. He's an experienced, accomplished hockey coach, but not at this level.

The DeBoer hiring never happened. Ottawa went in a different direction, hiring former Blackhawks head coach Craig Hartsburg. He's had success with the Canadian World Junior teams the last two years, along with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the OHL. However, his track record in the NHL is less than good. That said, he's four years removed from his last NHL job, and almost a decade from the last time he was a head coach. To be fair to Hartsburg and the Senators, maybe he has learned something in that time that will help him succeed as an NHL head coach this time around.
Continue Reading Senators, Panthers Hire Coaches

Panthers Give GM Martin Four More Years

Jes GolbezPosted May 16th 2008 3:07PM by Jes Golbez (author feed)
Filed under: General NHL, Panthers, NHL Rumors

When Mike Keenan resigned his GM position as a member of the Florida Panthers' organization, it was rumored that Jacques Martin, his so-called 'friend', cozied up to the owner and had Iron Mike shoved out the door.

Given Martin's close relationship with Panthers' owner Alan Cohen, it isn't too surprising that the Panthers decided to give Jacques a lucrative extension through 2012.
Martin, who also was the team's coach the past three seasons, was asked by Cohen last week to vacate the post after Florida missed the playoffs for the seventh consecutive campaign. Cohen did, however, offer Martin the opportunity to keep his job as GM.

"I put considerable thought into (the decision to stay)," Martin told the Sun-Sentinel. "I did really enjoy coaching, but I did feel this year, with all the different issues, it made it difficult. It was clear (the dual role) was too much for one person.

I could never understand why owners would allow anyone to have both the roles of GM and coach, given how much time and dedication is needed to do just one of the jobs at a satisfactory level. It's just silly, and reeks of egotism.

Continue Reading Panthers Give GM Martin Four More Years

The Puzzling Firing of Dave Nonis

Eric McErlainPosted Apr 15th 2008 10:57AM by Eric McErlain (author feed)
Filed under: General NHL, Panthers, Canucks



Like Bob McKenzie over at TSN, I'm having a tough time getting my head around the dismissal of Dave Nonis as GM of the Vancouver Canucks. Sure, the Canucks took a pretty horrible tumble from last season, dropping from a Northwest Division title and 107 points to a ninth-place finish (technically 11th) in the West just three points outside a playoff spot. Then again, as others have recounted, the Cancuks blue line had to be held together with spit and bailing wire this season after getting hit with a tsunami's worth of injuries that saw six defensemen miss a significant amount of playing time.

For me, and I'm sure for many others, Nonis should be remembered and hailed for just one thing: His acquisition of Roberto Luongo from the Florida Panthers for Todd Beruzzi, Alex Auld and Bryan Allen. The Canucks also got defenseman Lukas Krajicek back in the deal. Still just 29 27, Luongo probably has anywhere between 8-10 seasons of elite-level play left in his career, more than enough time for the Canucks to make a few changes around the margins to acquire the offensive pieces they need to get back into the playoffs and make a serious Cup run.

And as we all know from our hockey history, time and time again, it's the elite goalie who makes the difference in the Stanley Cup playoffs. And while the current ownership group in Vancouver would like you to forget about Nonis starting right about now, hockey fans in the know understand all too well that he put the franchise in the position to do some damage in the Stanley Cup Playoffs every year they manage to qualify. That is, as long as Luongo is in the picture. It won't be long before Nonis finds another job.

More thoughts from Orland Kurtenblog and Canucks and Beyond.
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