Slowly but surely, the new NHL season is approaching.
When the Florida Panthers take the ice for Opening Night on Oct. 8, they will begin their Stanley Cup title defense.
Florida will be among several teams viewed as contenders to compete for a championship.
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A big reason why the Panthers have become one of the top units in the league is due to the roster that General Manager Bill Zito has built over the past several years.
Lately, NHL Network has been ranking players by their position.
Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky came up as the league’s seventh-best goaltender, according to the network’s experts.
This week they’re looking at the Top 20 NHL wingers, and a pair of Panthers ended up making it onto the list.
Actually, the two Cats cracked the list’s top ten.
Coming in as the ninth best winger in the league was last season’s 57-goal scorer Sam Reinhart.
He put up big offensive numbers for Florida, which are surely a big part of why he made the list.
According to NHL.com: “Reinhart had a career year with NHL highs in goals (57), points (94), power-play goals (27, most in the NHL), power-play points (34), plus-minus (plus-29), short-handed goals (five, second-most in the NHL), game-winning goals (11, second-most in the NHL) and shots on goal (233).”
What wasn’t mentioned was Reinhart’s two-way play, which has quietly made him one of the most valuable players out there.
Also, to be fair, Reinhart may be listed here as a winger, but he took 530 faceoffs for the Panthers last season, another career high.
Positionally, he plays more winger than center, but his faceoff skills for those right-side draws are incredibly useful to Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice.
Nearing the top of the NHL Network’s Top 20 wingers list is where we find the second Panthers player to make the cut.
To no surprise, it’s Matthew Tkachuk.
In two seasons with Florida, Tkachuk has logged 66 goals and 197 points while helping them reach consecutive Stanley Cup Finals.
He’s become an emotional leader for the team and is one of the key pieces to Florida’s championship core.
Both Tkachuk and Reinhart are signed through the end of the decade (Tkachuk until 2030 and Reinhart until 2032), and to very reasonable AAVs (average annual values) considering how good they each are (Tkachuk’s AAV is $9.5M while Reinhart’s is $8.625)
You can check out the NHL Network’s piece on Tkachuk below:
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