Saturday 22 October 2011

Is there still going to be rebuilding in Florida?

  Dale Tallon came in as the GM of the Florida Panthers in 2010 replacing Randy Sexton with one goal in mind. Build his team similar to how he built the Chicago Blackhawks which parlayed in a Stanley Cup victory in the same calendar year beating the Philadelphia Flyers in 6 games and ending the longest playoff drought in the league.
  In his short term, he has completely revamped the franchise. He has drafted Erik Gudbranson and Jonathan Huberdeau the past two drafts and just last summer he went out and signed big players such as Ed Jovanovski, Tomas Fleischmann, Sean Bergenheim who was a playoff sensation for cross state rivals Tampa Bay, Kris Versteeg, Tomas Kopecky, Jose Theodore who has had his struggles over the years and trading for Brian Campbell. There were not done today as Stephen Reinprecht and David Booth who was the cornerstone of the franchise before suffering two concussions on hits from Mike Richards when he was with Philly and Jaroslav Spacek of the Canadiens two seasons ago were traded along with a 3rd round pick to the Vancouver Canucks for injury prone forwards Marco Sturm and Mikeal Samuelsson.
    While Tallon still tries to revamp the franchise by acquring new talent in the short term, rebuilding will still be there but ending the longest playoff drought in the NHL still seems like a long time away for the Cats who last made it in 2000 when they were swept in the first round by the eventual Stanley Cup champs, the New Jersey Devils.