Florida Panthers may have built the NHL's most hated roster

The Florida Panthers could have blamed injuries for last season and tried again with essentially the same roster. Nobody would have laughed them out of the room.

Aleksander Barkov missed the entire season. Matthew Tkachuk played only 31 games. Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell and Seth Jones also missed considerable time. By April, the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions looked more like a particularly expensive hospital waiting room.

Florida missed the playoffs, ending its pursuit of a third consecutive championship before it ever began.

General manager Bill Zito apparently had no interest in using injuries as cover. Instead, he spent the offseason remaking a roster that had just won consecutive Cups.

The Panthers are healthy again, considerably meaner and completely out of excuses.

Brady Tkachuk changes everything in Florida

Acquiring Brady Tkachuk from the Ottawa Senators immediately returned Florida to the center of the NHL conversation.

The price was enormous. Florida sent Ottawa three first-round picks, including the ninth and 25th selections in the 2026 draft, plus a 2027 second-rounder. That is the type of package a team moves when it has stopped worrying about five years from now.

Brady will join Matthew on a forward group already featuring Barkov, Reinhart, Bennett, Marchand and Lundell. Opponents disliked playing Florida before. Adding another Tkachuk seems almost rude.

The Panthers also traded for Garnet Hathaway and brought back Radko Gudas, two more players who are not known for making evenings pleasant. Florida had already built its championship identity around skill, pressure and enough aggravation to make opponents lose their patience.

Zito doubled down on all of it.

Goaltending is Florida’s biggest gamble

The Panthers did allow one important piece of their championship run to leave.

Sergei Bobrovsky signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs after producing a career-low .877 save percentage last season. Florida replaced him by acquiring Jacob Markstrom and Akira Schmid.

Moving on from a 37-year-old goaltender after his worst statistical season was understandable. Trusting Markstrom to carry a team with Stanley Cup expectations is not without risk.

Markstrom went 23-19-1 with New Jersey last season. He is also 36 and has never won the Stanley Cup. Florida is betting that a healthier roster and its defensive structure will make the transition easier.

It probably will.

The Panthers did not need to become a completely different team. They needed their stars back, more reliable goaltending and enough depth to survive another bruising season.

Zito supplied all three while adding Brady Tkachuk for good measure.

Injuries explained Florida’s collapse last year. They will not explain another one.

The Panthers have two Tkachuks, a loaded forward group and a roster constructed for an immediate championship run. Anything short of a deep playoff appearance would now qualify as a failure.