{"id":314644,"date":"2026-06-21T08:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/314644\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T08:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:42:07","slug":"sunday-florida-panthers-offseason-caterwaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/314644\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Florida Panthers Offseason Caterwaul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">In The Athletic\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7363768\/2026\/06\/18\/nhl-worst-value-contract-2025-26\/?source=athletic_weeklyemail&amp;campaign=602288&amp;userId=1014230&amp;source=athletic_weeklyemail\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Every NHL team\u2019s worst value contract <\/a>in 2025-26 writer Harman Dayal tabbed defenseman Aaron Ekblad as the Florida Panthers example with \u201chonorable\u201d mention to forwards Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Florida\u2019s Most Inefficient Contracts in 2025-26: <\/p>\n<p>Aaron Ekblad Net Rating: -0.4  Cap Hit:  $6.1 million  Years: 7<\/p>\n<p>Sam Bennett Net Rating: 5.1  Cap Hit:  $8 million  Years: 7<\/p>\n<p>Carter Verhaeghe Net Rating: 3.7  Cap Hit:  $7 million  Years: 7<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Aaron Ekblad:\u00a0Big-picture, Ekblad\u2019s $6.1 million cap hit is still a team-friendly number. Ekblad\u2019s underlying numbers took a significant hit in 2025-26, but I fully expect those two-way metrics to rebound next season once Aleksander Barkov returns to the lineup \u2014 Ekblad\u2019s pair shares a ton of minutes with the Barkov line. Just chalk this one up as an off year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe are slightly overpaid relative to their regular-season contributions, but it doesn\u2019t matter because both are extremely clutch in the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The real killer was Sergei Bobrovsky \u2014 he slumped to an .877 save percentage despite his $10 million cap hit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Despite their postseason miss, DraftKings gives the Panthers the fourth-best (tied with the Oilers) odds of reclaiming the Stanley Cup in 2026-27. Defending champions Carolina (+700) tops the list with Colorado (+800), Vegas (+850), Florida (+1100) and Edmonton (+1100) rounding out the top-five.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Speaking of Carolina, the Hurricanes brought their Stanley Cup celebration to downtown Raleigh on Saturday, drawing a crowd that police estimated at 150,000, according to city public information officer Julia Milstead. That represented nearly a third of Raleigh\u2019s population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">At the celebration, forward Nicolas Deslauriers re-upped with the Bunch of Jerks, inking a two-year contract extension worth $1.75 million. Deslauriers collected one assist in seven games with the Hurricanes after being acquired from the Philadelphia Flyers on March 6. He appeared in one game during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The Columbus Blue Jackets re-signed defenseman Corson Ceulemans to a one-year deal worth $850K. Ceulemans, 23, spent the 2025-26 season with the AHL\u2019s Cleveland Monsters, where he produced eight goals and 24 points in 64 games. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In The Athletic\u2019s Every NHL team\u2019s worst value contract in 2025-26 writer Harman Dayal tabbed defenseman Aaron Ekblad&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-314644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314644","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=314644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}