{"id":752996,"date":"2026-06-22T14:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752996\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T14:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T14:06:10","slug":"panthers-climb-espns-nhl-power-rankings-ahead-of-2026-27-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752996\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers climb ESPN\u2019s NHL Power Rankings ahead of 2026-27 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">Although the start of the 2026-27 NHL season isn\u2019t for another three months, ESPN is eager to start talking about it, posting their <a href=\"https:\/\/africa.espn.com\/nhl\/story\/_\/id\/49043763\/nhl-power-rankings-2026-27-top-teams-players-poll-best-games-free-agents\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u201cway-too-early\u201d Power Rankings<\/a>, which saw the Florida Panthers make a significant jump. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5u\">In their last <a href=\"https:\/\/africa.espn.com\/nhl\/story\/_\/id\/48378376\/nhl-power-rankings-2025-26-top-teams-players-poll-best-games-playoffs-schedule\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">regular-season posting on April 10<\/a>, the Panthers, who missed the playoffs and tumbled down the Atlantic Division standings, found themselves 26th overall, a drop from 23rd. However, so much has changed in the past two months that the writers felt the team would rebound and in a big way next season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5x\">Last year, Florida suffered through an endless list of injuries, including going without captain Aleksander Barkov for the entirety of the year. But he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/news\/aleksander-barkov-panthers-really-happy-with-recovery-from-knee-surgery\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">recovered from his ACL and MCL injury<\/a> to help lead Finland to a World Championship on May 31, a positive sign for Panthers fans who can\u2019t wait for the former Selke Trophy winner to be back next season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">Meanwhile, ESPN pointed out that the Panthers do not have an NHL-level goalie on their roster, as Sergei Bobrovsky and Daniil Tarasov will be unrestricted free agents. However, <a href=\"https:\/\/therattrick.com\/null\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the club appears linked t<\/a>o Winnipeg Jets netminder and former Hart Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck, so it\u2019s obvious that players want to come to Florida, giving General Manager Bill Zito plenty of names to seek out to fill the void.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">Besides, with so many players missing large chunks of the season due to injuries, an early offseason, their first in four years, gave everyone a chance to rest and recover, and the chance to come into training camp with a clean bill of health. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">Right now, the Panthers core, featuring Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, Seth Jones, Sam Reinhart, and Brad Marchand, is locked up for the next few seasons. Fans across the hockey world should expect to see Florida remain a Stanley Cup contender and continue to occupy a top-10 spot in these ESPN power rankings for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow therattrick.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=therattrick.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although the start of the 2026-27 NHL season isn\u2019t for another three months, ESPN is eager to start&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-752996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}