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The Florida Panthers have the entire offseason to bask in the success they just had in the 2024-25 NHL season. But winning the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row has also put an even bigger target on the back of Matthew Tkachuk and company. That means new and bigger challenges as well for Florida's front office, which has some big items to cross out on its to-do list before the start of the 2025-26 campaign.
Among those is finding a way to get under the salary cap. At the moment, the reigning Stanley Cup champions are over the cap by $3.725 million, according to Puck Pedia. That was raised by a fan in a message to NHL.com's Dan Rosen.
“How do you expect Bill Zito to make the team cap compliant by the start of the season? Any validity to the rumors of an Evan Rodrigues trade or putting Matthew Tkachuk on LTIR?” asked the fan.
Tkachuk, who missed games due to an injury he sustained in the 4 Nations Face-Off while playing for the United States team, could potentially address a nagging health issue through surgery this offseason. If he does, that could result in the Panthers putting him on the long-term injured reserve. Under that scenario, the Panthers will be allowed to go over the cap, assuming they meet conditions.
As for Rodrigues, Rosen said that he “certainly” believes the forward has the potential to get sent somewhere else via a trade.
Wrote Rosen: “Rodrigues certainly is a trade candidate seeing that his contract has a reported $3 million AAV. There's zero doubt here that teams already have, currently are, or soon will be inquiring about his availability. He's a valuable, versatile, veteran player the Panthers do not take for granted. Unfortunately, losing him might be the price Florida has to pay for re-signing Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad, Brad Marchand and Tomas Nosek.”
Rodrigues, who still has two more years left on his current deal that comes with a cap hit of $3 million, had a strong showing during the Panthers' 2025 Stanley Cup Playoff run. In the postseason, he found the back of the net just a couple of times, but he had 13 assists, just three fewer than the 16 helpers that Carter Verhaeghe and Aleksander Barkov each had to lead the team in that statistical department.
