Panthers combine experience and upside with new goalie tandem

It appears Sergei Bobrovsky’s days with the Florida Panthers are coming to an end. The Panthers are reportedly nearing a deal to acquire New Jersey Devils goaltender Jacob Markstrom in exchange for forward Evan Rodrigues. When you consider Florida also brought in goaltender Akira Schmid from the Vegas Golden Knights for a third-round pick on Monday, it’s pretty apparent the Panthers are preparing for life without Bob.

Florida, who hopes to return to their Stanley Cup-winning form next season, will be relying on their new-look goalie tandem to do so. Markstrom, 36, will presumably be their number one, though he’s coming off an underwhelming year in which he posted a .883 save percentage and a 3.07 goals-against average. Schmid, 26, should still his fair share of action, as he put up a .893 SV% and a 2.59 GAA in 34 appearances for Vegas last season.

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed the potential of the Panthers’ new goaltending duo.

Tyler Yaremchuk: What do you make of Florida making Markstrom their guy?

Carter Hutton: I like it, honestly. You have to do something here. We sat back here a week ago being like “Ok, that’s great you got Brady Tkachuk and you did all this movement. You don’t have Bob under contract. You have $7 million to work with and you don’t even have a goalie on contract.” Looking at them now with A.J. Greer going out, Akira Schmid coming in, who I like, I think he has a lot of upside. He played well in Vegas. He kind of carried the mail for a while. You have that piece, you have that young upside goalie with a little bit more of a ceiling. I think Daniil Tarasov had his run, it didn’t really work out.

Now you have Jacob Markstrom, the veteran of over 500 games, .907 career numbers. Yes, he had a down year, I get it. But the New Jersey Devils are not the Florida Panthers. Let me get that straight. Playing for a team like that is going to really open up a window for Markstrom to be successful. Having that younger guy with you, now you can kind of have a platoon like he had with Jake Allen, but I think you’re playing in a better situation with a chance to win. I’ll tell you one thing about Jacob Markstrom. I played a ton of hockey against him. We actually played in the minors. I remember he was in San Antonio, and he was touted as the best goalie not in the NHL. You know why? It’s because he’s a monster, but he gets himself in trouble overmoving at times, chasing the game. I think this is a perfect situation where you’re going to go to a veteran team. They’re going to be predictable, they’re going to be good. I think this is a great move for Florida and makes them very dangerous in the Eastern Conference.

You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Tuesday’s episode here…