The Florida Panthers Have Two of the Most Coveted Players This Offseason
Dave Pagnotta of the Fourth Period was on TSN Radio in Montreal ahead of Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final, which the Florida Panthers won 6-1 over the Edmonton Oilers. He was asked about the play of Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand, specifically how their play is increasing their value this off-season.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
NHL Rumors: Florida Panthers UFAs; Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand
Host: “How about the play of (Sam) Bennett in these playoffs and what it means for free agency? And actually, I was talking about this a little bit at the beginning of the show, clearly, (Sam) Reinhart and (Matthew) Tkachuk are injured. And (Aleksander) Barkov has yet to really insert himself in the series, and (Sergei) Bobrovsky has kind of been averaged and those are your top guys with the Florida Panthers. But in these playoffs, it’s been all about the two pending unrestricted free agents, Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand.”
Dave Pagnotta: “Marchand’s line, more than anything, has been absolutely incredible the entire playoffs. And, I mean, it’s effectively their first line, the way that they’re performing. Florida made a bit of a change last game, and just swapped out (Carter) Verhaeghe with (Evan) Rodrigues, and they just kind moved Verhaeghe back up with, with Reinhart and Barkov.
But yeah, Reinhart’s battling something. Tkachuk is certainly battling something pretty serious. Reinhart’s on the ice right now. By the way, Tkachuk is not, but again, optional skates. Nobody read into that but, but Marchand’s line has been the driving force for them in every component of the game. Again, going back to the whole physically, defensively, offensively, they’ve been bringing everything on a regular basis. And Marchand has been the guy kind of leading that force.
NHL Rumors: Brad Marchand’s Stock Rising Heading into Free Agency
And Bennett has been doing what he can to create havoc all over the place. And yeah, they’re the two key guys to zero in on (Aaron) Ekblad is also a pending unrestricted free agent. I think there’s more of a belief that Ekblad is going to hit the market, whereas there’s a likelihood that Bennett stays and a possibility that Marchand does as well.
So, I mean, obviously we’ll see kind of how things go once we get after just the Stanley Cup kind of wraps up. But it’s similar to, like Bennett’s in a similar situation to Reinhart last year. He went through the Stanley Cup Final. They didn’t get a deal done till afterwards, and he stuck around, but everybody kind of seemed confident that was going to be the case.
Similarly, surrounding Bennett’s situation, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t stay. Marchand, my understanding, he’s very interested in sticking around. So we’ll see how they kind of juggle things cap-wise.”
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