30-year-old forward to join Florida Panthers on PTO

As first reported by Florida Hockey Now’s George Richards, Brett Ritchie is expected to join the Florida Panthers on a professional tryout deal next week.

The 30-year-old forward is coming off of an eight-goal, 21-point season between Calgary and Arizona last year. His eight goals were the second-best of his career, but still half of his personal-best 16 he had with Dallas in 2016-17.

Ritchie was traded to Arizona at the deadline by Calgary in a move that saw his brother, Nick, head to Alberta – marking the first time two brothers were traded for each other.

A 6-foot-4 right winger, Ritchie was originally drafted 44th overall by Dallas in 2011. He made his NHL debut in 2014 with Dallas, where he’d spend five years before joining Boston in 2019-20. He has struggled to stay full-time in an NHL lineup, but teams seem to like his big, physical presence in the bottom six. With 85 points in 391 NHL games, you’re not bringing in Ritchie to score.

If the Panthers are to sign Ritchie to a PTO, it’ll likely be at the expense of one of the team’s younger players, such as Mackie Samoskevich or Justin Sourdif. The Panthers don’t have much roster space, but Ritchie’s experience could still be handy deeper in the lineup.

CapFriendly has the Panthers sitting at $9.824 million under the cap with Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour expected to start the season on long-term injured reserve. The team also has three goaltenders with Sergei Bobrovsky, Anthony Stolarz and Spencer Knight. If Knight can return and stay healthy, that could make Stolarz and his $1.1 million cap hit expendable.

Ritchie is the lone PTO signing by Florida so far, with Eric Staal signing a deal after his tryout with the club a year ago. The team also inked Kevin Connauton after his PTO in 2020.