Bill Zito Confident Panthers Will Re-Sign Bennett, Ekblad, and Marchand

Bill Zito Confident Panthers Will Re-Sign Bennett, Ekblad, and Marchand

Three-peat on? Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad, and Brad Marchand hit free agency this Summer. If the Florida Panthers actually do find a way to bring all three of those guys back, they feel incredibly difficult to beat next year. Don’t worry, Bill Zito has a plan to run this puppy back.

“I think we can bring them all back,” he told TSN’s James Duthie as his team celebrated on the ice behind him.

“Let’s just leave it at that,” he said with a smile.

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Florida enters the offseason with $19 million in cap space. Sure, maybe bringing all three back are possible, but they still need to actually fill out the roster. Bringing that trio back would get you to 19 players. That’s four short of the 23 man limit. Mackie Samoskevich is also an RFA, plus Tomas Nosek is part of the UFA list too technically as a fourth liner.

If you want an offseason video on this, I’ll figure out a way to squeeze it in the things to do section. Initial gut feel is that Bennett is a lock to come back. Ekblad will only come back if he just accepts that he’s never getting another big ticket from the team again. Marchand may get a huge offer elsewhere and just price himself out, regardless. It’s doable, but the real thing about it is that there really isn’t a ton of fat to trim off this roster to make more cap space.

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