{"id":219542,"date":"2026-04-05T12:37:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/219542\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T12:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:37:06","slug":"out-of-the-playoffs-what-florida-panthers-can-look-forward-to-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/219542\/","title":{"rendered":"Out of the Playoffs, What Florida Panthers Can Look Forward to Next"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Florida Panthers have known they were not going to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs for a long time now, yet now that it is official, the team can start looking ahead to the future. <\/p>\n<p>Florida has five games remaining after playing the host Pittsburgh Penguins again today.<\/p>\n<p>There will be a different kind of scoreboard watching to end this season.<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers traded its 2026 first-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks last year as part of the Seth Jones\/Spencer Knight deal.<\/p>\n<p>But, Florida made sure the pick was protected just in case its season went off the rails like, well, it did. <\/p>\n<p>If the Panthers end up with a draft pick in the top 10 this summer, they get to keep it. <\/p>\n<p>Chicago would get Florida\u2019s first-round pick next year with the Boston Bruins, who were supposed to have the 2027 pick from the Brad Marchand trade, sliding back to 2028.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/floridahockeynow.com\/eliminated-florida-panthers-are-out-nhl-will-have-a-new-stanley-cup-champion\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FHN: Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers Officially Eliminated from the Playoffs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Right now, the Panthers are ranked 25th in the 32-team NHL. If things stay the way they are and no one moves up or down in the lottery, Florida would have the No. 8 pick.<\/p>\n<p>It probably will not stay the way it is right now. <\/p>\n<p>Teams both above and below the Panthers are trying to situate themselves in the best possible position to win the lottery in what will be a deep and talented draft. <\/p>\n<p>Penn State freshman forward Gavin McKenna is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/draft\/prospects\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/draft\/prospects\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the top-ranked prospect<\/a> per NHL.com and may be the top player taken in the draft.<\/p>\n<p>There will be a lot of good players taken early this year with forwards Ivar Stenberg and Tynan Lawrence, and defensemen Keaton Verhoeff and Alberts Smits all looking like top selections.<\/p>\n<p>Now, while the Panthers have not shown signs of a tank \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/floridahockeynow.com\/pittsburgh-penguins-9-florida-panthers-4-april-4-2026-six-in-second-leads-to-rout\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/floridahockeynow.com\/pittsburgh-penguins-9-florida-panthers-4-april-4-2026-six-in-second-leads-to-rout\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Saturday\u2019s 9-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> certainly got out of hand \u2014 they certainly can help their draft standing with some more losses here in the final 10 days of this season.<\/p>\n<p>The NHL Draft will be held in Buffalo on June 26-27, but the lottery will be on May 5. <\/p>\n<p>It used to be that the 16 teams (or the team who own those picks) which do not make the playoffs had a chance to swoop up and win the lottery. <\/p>\n<p>Now, only the bottom 11 teams will be able to move up to No. 1.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the New York Islanders had the 10th best odds and won the lottery. They didn\u2019t screw it up either, making a fantastic pick in defenseman Matthew Schaefer.<\/p>\n<p>So, being ranked low does not mean a team is going to win \u2014 but it certainly increases their chances to move up either to the first or second pick in the draft. <\/p>\n<p>The Vancouver Canucks will have the worst record in the NHL this year, and with that, they will have a 25.5 percent chance to winning that top pick. <\/p>\n<p>The second-worst team in the league, which happens to be the Chicago Blackhawks, would have a 13.5 percent chance. <\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s say the Panthers do not win another game to wrap up the season \u2014 and, after they beat Ottawa and Boston, one has to think they\u2019ll win a couple more \u2014 to finish with 77 points. <\/p>\n<p>That number probably puts the Panthers in the top 5 which is an 8.5 percent chance. <\/p>\n<p>If Florida stays around where they\u2019re currently at, its odds would be 6 percent. <\/p>\n<p>So, there is not much difference. <\/p>\n<p>Last year, Paul Maurice did not push his team at the end of the season for seeding purposes or to try and get home ice advantage. <\/p>\n<p>He wanted a healthy team, and figured things would work out they way they should. <\/p>\n<p>So, it would be hard to see the Panthers even consider some sort of tank job to try and move up in the draft odds order for a few more percent points. <\/p>\n<p>In the end, the Canucks have the best chance to win it \u2014 but we saw the Islanders get it last year.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a crap shoot.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing is, the Panthers would not help themselves by winning too many games and risk dropping out of the top 10 and losing the pick to the Bruins. <\/p>\n<p>ON DECK: GAME No. 77<\/p>\n<p>FLORIDA PANTHERS at PITTSBURGH PENGUINS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers have known they were not going to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs for a long&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,16995,99563,51474,15952,78369],"class_list":{"0":"post-219542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-florida-panthers","12":"tag-gavin-mckenna","13":"tag-nhl-draft","14":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","15":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}