March 4, 2025 | 11:10am ET
TheFourthPeriod.com

PANTHERS LOOKING TO MAKE MORE MOVES?

Panthers GM Bill Zito

The Florida Panthers made a splash on Saturday, acquiring defenceman Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks, but GM Bill Zito may have more tricks up his sleeve ahead of Friday’s 3pm ET trade deadline.

TFP’s David Pagnotta first reported during the 4 Nations Face-Off Pregame Show on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio prior to the U.S. and Sweden game that Matthew Tkachuk was going to miss the balance of the regular-season. Zito confirmed on Monday that is the case and the team has since placed Tkachuk on LTIR.

As it currently stands, the Panthers have $8.705 million in salary cap space because of their LTIR pool and that allows them to spend more this week.

During Monday night’s edition of “The Latest” on TFP, Kate Petterson asked David Pagnotta if the Panthers plan on dipping their toes back in the trade pool.

“It certainly wouldn’t surprise anybody if Bill Zito gets aggressive and makes it another impact edition for this roster,” Pagnotta replied. “Now, he is looking for a goaltender to kind of add a little bit of depth as they go into the playoffs. . . . but as you said, from a splash perspective, Florida has a lot of flexibility now. It’s going to be interesting to see how they maneuver the deadline over these next. We’ll see what they do, but they’ve put everybody on notice that Florida could make another big move here ahead of Friday’s deadline.”

The Panthers have the cap space to add someone to help Sergei Bobrovsky and Chris Driedger, whom they have recalled, and may target the likes of Alexandar Georgiev ($2.924M cap hit) or Vitek Vanecek ($3.4M cap hit) in San Jose.

Up front, Pagnotta noted on Sportsnet The Fan 590 on Tuesday morning that the Panthers may look to add a mid-six scoring winger, as well.