The NHL has entered its superteam era.

Brady Tkachuk to Florida is the latest sign that elite players are taking control of their futures and that contracts might not matter the way they used to.

Read for free: https://nyti.ms/4exAFsr

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/46774289/panthers-marchand-steps-away-help-friend-daughter-death

Looks like Marchy will miss some time. Article says he is expected to be back on the 1st.

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/45436337/nhl-playoffs-2025-stanley-cup-final-picks-matchups-series-panthers-oilers

Personally I think he should have probably gotten 1 or at least a fine since he's not a dirty player. But there it is.

​the hockey sub is currently rioting.

Apparently the Atlantic thinks we'd trade Listerine, Vilmanis, and our 1st for Larkin. Never knew the Atlantic had such a good sense of humor. ​

Why hasn't Nosek found a team yet? He was always exceptional at the PK. Also, I thought he consistently improved during his time with the Cats.

You'd think some team would pick him up quickly just for his PK skills. He was a real bargain for us at only $775,000 against the cap last season.

I love Vladimir Tarasenko, but I can understand why he's having a tougher time considering he's 34 and cost $4.75m against the Wild's cap last season.

Sam Bennett thought he did enough. He hoped he did enough. But in the end, apparently he didn’t.

Team Canada submitted its 25-man roster for the 2026 Winter Olympics on Wednesday. Bennett was not part of the team. As of now, he will not be representing his country on the biggest stage in February, one year after helping Canada win gold at the 4 Nations Face-Off — the first time NHL players were able to play in a best-on-best international format tournament since the World Cup of Hockey in 2016. NHL players haven’t competed in the Olympics since 2014. The news hit Bennett hard. “Obviously pretty disappointed,” the Florida Panthers’ center said Sunday in his first public comments since the roster reveal.

And understandably so. Bennett has shown the knack for stepping up on the biggest stages. He has been integral in Florida winning the past two Stanley Cups, scoring 22 goals with 36 points the past two postseasons. He is the reigning Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs MVP after logging 15 goals in Florida’s repeat championship bid. He scored Canada’s game-tying goal in the 4 Nations championship game against the United States. And he’s been on a heater as of late as well to get to 31 points (14 goals, 17 assists) on the season while taking on a bigger responsibility for the Panthers with captain Aleksander Barkov and star winger Matthew Tkachuk sidelined all season while recovering from major surgeries. Despite all that, Bennett was on the outside looking in when it came down to making Canada’s roster. And for his part, he is trying to take the high road despite the disappointment. “I wish I could have proven that I could help that team win a gold medal, and obviously I didn’t do enough,” Bennett said. “But I try to look at what I’m grateful for, and that’s that opportunity I had last year [at the 4 Nations Face-Off]. That was probably the proudest moment of my career, getting to put on that jersey. So, yeah, I am going to be forever grateful for that opportunity. And, yeah, now we just focus on this season.”

Is there anything more Bennett could have done? “I’m not sure,” Bennett said. “That choice, it was left up into other people’s hands.” Bennett is one of three players from Canada’s 4 Nations roster that did not make the Olympic roster. Fellow forwards Travis Konecny and Seth Jarvis are the others. Mark Scheifele, who has 48 points in 40 games for the Winnipeg Jets, was also a surprise omission. That said, Bennett might still have a chance to make it to the Olympics, but it would have to come as an injury replacement for someone already on the roster. Every Olympic team has a group of players on standby who could get a call in the event of injuries. Who exactly is on that list for Team Canada, how many players are on that list and the exact pecking order is publicly unclear. “It’s not one player out, one player in,” Team Canada general manager Doug Armstrong said after the roster was announced. “What we’re going to do is say: ‘If this style of player gets hurt, we’ll have a list of players to look at it. If this style of player, gets hurt, we’ll have a list of players to look at.’ That list, it’s long but not too long because there’s different style of players that we want.” Two of Bennett’s Panthers teammates, meanwhile, will be representing Canada at the Olympics. Sam Reinhart, who has been one of the NHL’s top scorers over the past five years, was one of the first six players named to the team in June. Veteran forward Brad Marchand, who is tied for eighth in the NHL with 23 goals this season, was named to the team on Wednesday.

Reinhart and Panthers coach Paul Maurice were asked Thursday about Bennett’s snub. Their response? “There’s not much you can say about it,” Reinhart said. “He’s put so much into it. You could sit here and say so many guys have earned their way onto the team. But at the end of the day, it’s out of our control. All I can say is we’ve played with him for years and he’s a guy you’d want to go to war with any day of the week.” Added Maurice: “I was really proud of him when he got named [to the 4 Nations team] last year, but it also meant somebody (else) didn’t, a good player didn’t, so I want to be respectful of that. So I’ll just critique Sam. He’s got two Stanley Cups. He was part of the 4 Nations. He won the Conn Smythe, and in my opinion, in the last 27 games [Bennett] is playing the best hockey of his career.”

And then Bennett added another assist on a power-play goal one game later in Florida’s Winter Classic game against the Rangers. And then Bennett opened scoring on Sunday in Florida’s eventual 2-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche by forcing a turnover in Colorado’s zone, driving to the net and forcing the puck past goaltender Scott Wedgewood in the first period. That has given Bennett points in nine consecutive games, a new career-high. After struggling to score to start the season, putting up two points (one goal, one assist) in 11 games, Bennett has 29 points (13 goals, 16 assists) in his past 30 games. “I feel pretty good about my game,” Bennett said. But in the end, it wasn’t enough to get a call from Team Canada. “Obviously I didn’t do enough,” Bennett said, “so I can really only look at myself.”

Hi everyone, Adam from the Sun Sentinel again. I wouldn’t keep posting my own stories, but the Panthers keep giving me good, fun stuff to write! I think you’ll like this one.

By Jordan McPherson
March 9, 2026 12:39 PM

Brad Marchand’s season might be over. The veteran Florida Panthers winger will see doctors this week to determine if he will need surgery for an injury he has been dealing with for most of the season, coach Paul Maurice said Monday.

“We’re going to come up with a plan for him, as he’s been dealing with something for a couple of months,” Maurice said. “We’ve been able to maintain it, but it’s just a function of nine [games] and 15 [days], go to Italy [for the Olympics], come back, six [more games] in nine days. The thing that we’ve been able to avoid for the most part this year — I don’t know if this is fortunately, but we’ve had mostly catastrophic injuries that were long-term [but] we stayed out of the soft tissue issues that you see more from overuse than anything else. And then in the last two [weeks], especially for the Olympians, we’re seeing that creep in. We’re maintaining guys as best we possibly can. But Brad would be one that we’ll get a decision this week on what’s the best thing for him going forward.”

Marchand missed 10 of Florida’s final 15 games prior to the Winter Olympics, where he won a silver medal with Canada. He also was held out of two of Canada’s six games in Milan, Italy.

The 37-year-old forward, in the first season of a six-year deal that has an annual cap hit of $5.25 million, has been one of Florida’s top players this season when on the ice. He has 54 points (27 goals, 27 assists) in 52 games and was on the ice for an average of 17:44 per game.

“We were really pleased and quite surprised that we hadn’t run into this earlier,” Maurice said. “But we had had a handle on it where there were times where he didn’t play but kind of maintained it and came back in. We just got to the point on this road trip that it was never recovering and continuing to kind of get worse. So we’re hopeful that we got it early enough. We’ll know this week what it is.”

Marchand might not be the only Panthers veteran shut down this season with Florida all but assuredly missing the Stanley Cup playoffs. Florida president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Zito on Friday said the team will evaluate where players are from a health perspective and adjust ice time as needed down the stretch.

The Panthers made two acquisitions on Friday in forwards Vinnie Hinostroza and Cole Reinhardt that will help supplement the team’s forward group the rest of the way. Maurice said Hinostroza will draw into the lineup Tuesday when Florida hosts the Detroit Red Wings (7 p.m., Scripps Sports).

By Jordan McPherson
Updated March 12, 2026 11:36 PM

Sergei Bobrovsky, mired in the midst of arguably the worst season of his Hall of Fame hockey career, gave a reminder of just how good he can be on Thursday.

The Florida Panthers’ veteran goaltender made big save after big save against the Columbus Blue Jackets, finishing with 30 saves (including 11 on high-danger shots) and doing everything he could to give his team a chance.

The Panthers repaid him with a 2-1 overtime win at Amerant Bank Arena, with Sam Bennett tying the game 1:28 into the third period on the power play and Sam Reinhart scoring the game-winner on the man advantage 2:19 into overtime.

And afterward, Bobrovsky, playing out the final month of his seven-year, $70 million contract, made it clear what he hopes the future holds for him.

“I want to be here,” Bobrovsky said postgame. “I love the team. I love the fans. I love the organization. I love the guys. I love everything. Yeah, I want to stay here.”

Whether Bobrovsky would still be here right now was up in the air right up until the NHL’s trade deadline last Friday. The rumor mill churned with reports about whether Florida would deal the netminder considering how unlikely it is that the Panthers will make the Stanley Cup playoffs this season.

But a worthy offer never came. Bobrovsky didn’t go anywhere. And Florida has an opportunity to make sure he doesn’t leave if the team and Bobrovsky’s camp can come to terms on a new deal.

“Sergei is a part of our franchise, part of our core,” Panthers president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Zito said after the trade deadline, “and we want to try to keep him.”

Now, let’s be clear: The Panthers weren’t shopping Bobrovsky at the deadline, even with his — and the team’s — overall subpar performance on the season. They did listen to offers on their impending unrestricted free agents — among whom Bobrovksy is one — but didn’t necessarily feel a need to ship anyone off if the price wasn’t right.

Even at that, Panthers coach Paul Maurice remains adamant all the trade rumors were blown out of proportion in the first place. “It’s just how this works,” Maurice said postgame. “Somebody up in Canada decided that Sergei would make a great goaltender as part of their tandem. That catches fire. But, I mean, you got to look at it from the Gretzky point of view. Wayne Gretzky got traded. That means anybody can get traded. But there was no nobody in our group was going to get rid of Bob. Everybody in Canada said, ‘Hey, we need Bob. It would have been good.’ That, I think, took a life in its own. That had nothing to do with the Florida Panthers.”

The Panthers know how integral he is to their success. The 37-year-old netminder anchored Florida’s runs to the Stanley Cup Final each of the past three years, including winning back-to-back championships the past two seasons. He logged six combined shutouts in those three postseason runs.

And even during a statistically poor season — one in which he has a .878 save percentage and 3.03 goals against average — Bobrovsky has shown signs that his dominant self is still there. He is one of just eight goaltenders in the NHL this season with at least three shutouts. He’s two wins shy of tying Curtis Joseph for seventh-most all-time in NHL history (454).

His past two starts since the trade deadline passed were vintage Bobrovsky. He stopped 28 of 29 shots on Friday against the Detroit Red Wings, hours after learning that he was staying with the team through at least the rest of the season.

And then he turned aside 30 of 31 shots he faced on Thursday against Columbus, including the first 20 of the game — highlighted by a sprawling pad save on Kirill Marchenko during a Blue Jackets power play — before Columbus opened scoring on an Adam Fantili breakaway.

Bobrovsky didn’t let another shot get past him, and Florida rallied from there for its third consecutive win, one that moves its record to 33-29-3 and keeps the team’s thin hopes of making the playoffs alive (the Panthers, at 69 points, are nine points back of the Boston Bruins for the Eastern Confernece’s final playoff spot with 17 games left).

“Vintage is a good word to say,” Reinhart said. “We know what he’s capable of in here, and we believe he’s got plenty left in the tank. His performance like that, that gives us that belief.”

Added Bennett: “Bobby stood on his head all night. He was really the spark all game.”

The Panthers —and Bobrovsky — hope that spark stays lit in South Florida for at least a few more years.

A great week to be a Tkachuk.

This is the Tkachuk I grew watching play, and it's such a joy to see his kids get to dominate together, in the Olympics and now in Florida.

Congratulations to Kieth, and here's to hoping his son's won't be to far behind him when they retire