NHL Analyst Fires Back at Critics of Panthers' No-Tax Advantage: 'Stop Whining'

“Florida and Nashville both have no state income taxes, and their situations couldn’t be any more different,” Olive wrote. “Stop whining about taxes, give the Panthers their due, and accept Bill Zito is just an incredible GM.”

Ekblad’s $6.1 million AAV deal followed Marchand's $5.25 million AAV extension and Bennett’s $8 million AAV deal.

The moves prompted some critics to point to Florida’s tax structure as an unfair advantage.

Olive disagrees with the notion of the NHL having to fix the CBA in order to create some balance between no-tax states and other franchises that seemingly play an unfair financial game.

“Players want to win, and no one is winning more than the Panthers,” Olive wrote. 

Olive later added another post, expanding on his reasoning and arguing that players are buying into Zito’s vision.

“A reason players probably are OK with taking less at this point is because they also trust what Zito will do with those savings in order to build a winner,” Olive wrote. "At some point, all good teams ask players to take less, and it's never a guarantee that they do. It's earned."

League officials backed up Olive's stance the last time they addressed the supposed issue.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman noted that the tax situation isn’t new, and only now that Florida is winning is when everybody seems to have noticed it.

"When the Florida teams weren't good, which was for about 17 years, nobody said anything about it," he said. "For those of you who played, were you sitting there with a tax table? No."