{"id":317894,"date":"2026-06-24T09:31:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T09:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/317894\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T09:31:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T09:31:07","slug":"hes-a-leader-florida-panthers-gm-tells-wptv-brady-tkachuk-will-fit-in-seamlessly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/317894\/","title":{"rendered":"‘He’s a leader’: Florida Panthers GM tells WPTV Brady Tkachuk will fit in ‘seamlessly’"},"content":{"rendered":"

WPTV anchor and Panthers 360 host Mike Trim interviewed Florida Panthers General Manager Bill Zito the morning after the organization announced the blockbuster Brady Tkachuk deal.<\/a><\/p>\n

Tkachuk was officially introduced at a news conference Tuesday morning in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n

Read more of our latest Panthers news, coverage<\/a><\/p>\n

During the interview, Trim asked Zito, “What does Brady Tkachuk bring to an already outstanding Florida Panthers roster?”<\/p>\n

“Obviously, he’s a size, strength forward with some speed. He’s got some skill at scoring touch. He’s got a physical part to his game. He’s a team captain. He’s a leader. I mean, there’s not a whole lot that he isn’t other than small,” Zito replied.<\/p>\n

Talking about Brady Tkachuk playing with his brother Matthew on the same team, Zito said, “When you have brothers, there’s an added benefit, there’s a plus, there’s an energy that comes from that.”<\/p>\n

Trim asked Zito, “You got to see them gel on the same line in the Milan Olympics<\/a>. What was that like seeing them play together?”<\/p>\n

“The best word actually to describe it is fun,” Zito told Trim. “A good word in this situation, magnetism, they pull people towards them. I think he’ll fit into our group seamlessly, both as a teammate and then on ice being deployed however the coaches decide.”<\/p>\n

Trim asked Zito about the Florida Panthers becoming a desired destination.<\/p>\n

“Seeing, especially this offseason, potential free agents saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got a list of teams,’ and Florida seems to keep showing up. What does that say about the state of the Florida Panthers organization?” Trim asked.<\/p>\n

“It’s gratifying and humbling, I think players want to win ultimately. But I do know that the commitment from [team owner Vincent] Viola to us, when you combine the winning with that family atmosphere and then obviously South Florida, it’s a pretty positive combination,” Zito said.<\/p>\n

The NHL draft is happening Friday night, so Trim asked, “Are the fans expecting to see any more movement before draft day?”<\/p>\n

“I’m sure they’re expecting or hope, right? I don’t know, we have this fascination with, ‘Oh, there’s a trade. What did they trade?'” Zito said. “The one thing I think the fans can know for sure is we will be thorough and exhaustive in our pursuit of things we can do to help make our team better.”<\/p>\n

The Panthers 360 Draft Special airs on WPTV and WSFL at 7 p.m. Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Florida Panthers will have a draft party at Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale on Friday night. Activities start at 5 p.m. with a pre-draft panel starting at 6 p.m. The NHL 2026 Draft begins at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WPTV anchor and Panthers 360 host Mike Trim interviewed Florida Panthers General Manager Bill Zito the morning after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-317894","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\/317894","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=317894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}