Trade Rumors Around The Florida Panthers

Last week, I didn’t put much stock into the Larkin rumors about him coming to Florida. But recent updates from Elliotte Friedman suggest that the Panthers have put in an offer to Detroit. With Florida’s cap situation, there’d almost assuredly have to be money heading back the other way. He wasn’t a cap casualty this season due to all the injuries, but Evan Rodrigues could be a player that get moved in the deal. Most, if not all, of the Panthers’ top players have no move clauses, so any type of contract at a similar dollar amount would have to waive to be moved. If Larkin does end up with the Panthers, I could see Florida moving him to a winger position within the top six. It wouldn’t be dissimilar to how Sam Reinhart is listed as a center but plays Right Wing or Eetu Luostarinen, listed as a center but plays Left Wing. Bill Zito is always looking for moves that will improve his team, and ironically, bringing in Larkin would continue his trend of getting other teams’ captains. However, just because the Panthers put in an offer doesn’t mean Detroit will accept it, and reports from later in the week suggested that the team list from Larkin expanded outside the initial three.

As always, last week there was noise again around Brady Tkachuk getting traded to the Panthers, but nothing was confirmed from any of the national insiders. This seems to happen every few months around Brady, but it’s just noise until something substantial materializes. For as good a player as Brady is, the Panthers already have on their roster the type of intangibles he brings to the table through his brother Matthew, Sam Bennett, and Brad Marchand. Not that Brady couldn’t be a fit in Florida, but he wouldn’t necessarily fill a need for the team at the moment. The one thing I think that is interesting is that most of the big-name players that have come up in trade rumors over the last week were all part of Team USA at the Olympics. As well as from the Larkin three-team list that came out, while yes, they are contending teams, Minnesota, Florida, and Vegas all have at least one player who was on Team USA. Obviously, players talk to each other, so it wouldn’t be that surprising if they wanted to play with some of their USA teammates all the time. We’ll have to wait and see how this all plays out as Florida gets ready for the draft and has started signing players to their AHL affiliate.