Southeast: Will Panthers, Jets Make a Splash? at LinesMaker

Southeast: Will Panthers, Jets Make a Splash?

The trade dead­line is fast approach­ing, and teams around the NHL are try­ing to decide whether to buy or sell, and what needs can be or should be addressed. Increased par­ity in recent sea­sons has lim­ited the num­ber of teams will­ing to sell until the final days before the trade dead­line, but there has still been plenty of deals and big names on the move.

This is going to be a division-by-division look around the NHL and the dif­fer­ent needs, both in the short– and long-term, each club might be look­ing to rem­edy between now and Feb. 27.

A quick note: the salary cap infor­ma­tion comes from the web’s unques­tioned author­ity on the sub­jact, www.capgeek.com. Acqui­si­tion space is dif­fer­ent than a team’s salary cap space — it is how much salary a team can add on that day and be in com­pli­ance from then until the end of the sea­son. The num­ber changes daily, but each team’s fig­ure for this exer­cise will be what it was on Feb. 4 unless that team makes a major move.

We started Mon­day with the Cen­tral Divi­sion and con­tin­ued with the North­west, the Pacific, the Atlantic and the North­east Divi­sions. Up next is the final install­ment — the South­east Division.

FLORIDA PANTHERS

Record: 25–17-11, 61 points (3rd in East)

Goals for: 2.47 (T-21th in NHL)
Goals against: 2.72 (15th)
Power play: 18.5 per­cent (12th)
Penalty kill: 80.5 per­cent (25th)

Key injuries: D Dmitry Kulikov (March), RW Scot­tie Upshall (late March), D Ed Jovanovski (late Feb­ru­ary)
Acqui­si­tion space: $ 27.237 million

Skinny: GM Dale Tal­lon over­hauled the ros­ter between last year at this time and the end of the off­sea­son, and coach Kevin Dineen has the new-look Pan­thers firmly in play­off con­tention. So the dilemma for Tal­lon becomes this – does he try to add play­ers one year after blow­ing up his ros­ter, or does he stick with the cur­rent group and wait for the vast col­lec­tion of young tal­ent he might see find roles with the team in the next sea­son or two?

If Tal­lon does decide to add, there is an obvi­ous need. His top line of Tomas Fleis­chmann, Stephen Weiss and Kris Ver­steeg has been fan­tas­tic but has faded of late. The Pan­thers des­per­ately need a guy (or two) to bol­ster the sec­ond line. Sean Bergen­heim, Mar­cel Goc and Mikael Samuels­son have been pro­duc­tive together of late, but that trio should prob­a­bly be the team’s third line instead of the second.

Tal­lon has col­lected a vast pool of young tal­ent, and the Pan­thers may have the best set of prospects in the League. Erik Gud­bran­son has become an NHL reg­u­lar and Jonathan Huberdeau will be a pre­sea­son Calder Tro­phy favorite next sea­son. There is a large group of prospects behind them, and Tal­lon could pos­si­bly part with one or two to land an impact top-six for­ward (espe­cially if that player has more years left on his con­tract). The more likely course of action for Tal­lon is to not yield any­thing sub­stan­tial and look for a minor addi­tion to help the offense.

WASHINGTON C ITALS

Record: 28–21-5, 61 points (9th)

Goals for: 2.78 (11th)
Goals against: 2.76 (T-16th)
Power play: 18.6 per­cent (T-10th)
Penalty kill: 80.8 per­cent (23rd)

Key injuries: C Nick­las Back­strom (indef­i­nitely), D Mike Green (Iate Feb­ru­ary)
Acqui­si­tion space: $ 5.014 million

Skinny: So much of what the Cap­i­tals might do, and can do, at the trade dead­line is tied up in the health of Back­strom and Green. If either player is unable to return, then they need to be replaced. That is also the only way GM George McPhee will be able to make a sig­nif­i­cant move with­out mov­ing out salary.

That said, if the Cap­i­tals weren’t able to go for­ward with­out Back­strom or Green, how much of a threat to make a run are they really, and would it be worth to mort­gage impor­tant assets to try and replace one of them? If Green and Back­strom are healthy for the stretch run, McPhee has lit­tle cap space to work with, so he would likely have to move a con­tract to shake up the ros­ter. Defense­man Jeff Schultz had been a near-permanent fix­ture in the press box, but he’s started to get a sweater again.

The prover­bial ele­phant in the room is Alexan­der Semin and his $ 6.7 mil­lion con­tract. Maybe McPhee could move him to clear up space and then swing another deal to replace him? That is highly unlikely though.

WINNIPEG JETS

Record: 26–24-8, 60 points (10th)

Goals for: 2.34 (T-25th)
Goals against: 2.68 (14th)
Power play: 17.2 per­cent (T-16th)
Penalty kill: 82.6 per­cent (T-13th)

Key injuries: NONE
Acqui­si­tion space: $ 34.223 million

Skinny: The Jets could be a fas­ci­nat­ing team to mon­i­tor in the next two weeks, or they could end up not doing any­thing. Win­nipeg is cer­tainly in con­tention for both the South­east title and pos­si­bly a sev­enth or eighth seed in the East.

There is plenty of space for GM Kevin Chevel­day­off to work with, and the Jets are another team that has an obvi­ous need for an infu­sion of offense. Will Chevel­day­off have the moti­va­tion to act? Being the first year back in Win­nipeg, it would be a nice end­ing to the story if the Jets sneak into the play­offs, but it is also pos­si­ble Chevel­day­off tries to con­tinue to build toward the future and con­struct­ing a ros­ter than can do more than just squeak into the postseason.

It would hard to see the Jets sell­ing off any play­ers even Chevel­day­off decides not to buy, so it is pos­si­ble that dead­line day will be quiet in Win­nipeg. This is prob­a­bly another team that would like to make a minor move or two to help with a play­off push, but not a major deal that would alter the long-term plan.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING

Record: 23–24-6, 52 points (13th)

Goals for: 2.81 (10th)
Goals against: 3.34 (30th)
Power play: 13.9 per­cent (26th)
Penalty kill: 80.6 per­cent (24th)

Key injuries: D Mat­tias Ohlund (pos­si­bly out for sea­son)
Acqui­si­tion space: $ 7.497 million

Skinny: A year after GM Steve Yzer­man swung one of the deals of the sea­son to land goalie Dwayne Rolo­son, that is a posi­tion of need yet again. Whether or not Yzer­man tries to find a quick fix and help his team make a late run at the post­sea­son or chooses to address the sit­u­a­tion in the off­sea­son remains to be deter­mined. A short-term option might be some­one like Cur­tis San­ford from Colum­bus, while the long-term guys are all the high-profile back­ups like Corey Schnei­der and Jonathan Bernier.

The Light­ning could also use another defense­man to help with goal pre­ven­tion, and that is where Ohlund’s absence has really hurt Tampa Bay. If Yzer­man looks to the future, find­ing another young defense­man or two to build around with Vic­tor Hed­man is also on the pri­or­ity list.

Yzer­man has a few assets that con­tend­ing teams would be inter­ested in, includ­ing pend­ing UFAs Dominic Moore, Pavel Kubina and Brett Clark.

CAROLINA HURRICANES

Record: 20–25-11, 51 points (15th)

Goals for: 2.54 (T-19th)
Goals against: 3.00 (T-26th)
Power play: 14.9 per­cent (23rd)
Penalty kill: 78.3 per­cent (27th)

Key injuries: D Joni Pitka­nen (early March)
Acqui­si­tion space: $ 39.963 million

Skinny: GM Jim Ruther­ford has the nicest fruit at the mar­ket, but whether or not he fields any offers for them from the queue of con­tenders remains to be seen. He already locked up defense­man Tim Glea­son on a four-year con­tract, and he might sign for­ward Tuomo Ruutu as well.

Ruutu would gar­ner lots of inter­est and bring a hefty return, because he’s a ver­sa­tile, gritty for­ward that sev­eral top teams could use. If he doesn’t sign an exten­sion, expect Ruther­ford to col­lect at least two impact assets (think prospect and first-round pick) for Ruutu’s services.

There are other guys to deal as well. Glea­son might be off the mar­ket, but pend­ing UFAs Bryan Allen and Jaroslav Spacek will be entic­ing – espe­cially in what looks like a weak crop of avail­able defense­men. Ruther­ford isn’t likely to blow up his ros­ter, but he can col­lect a few more pieces for the future (includ­ing what will likely be a top-3 pick in June if the team con­tin­ues in its cur­rent form) and plan on re-tooling for a run at play­off con­tention in 2013.

Our sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. Our sports bet­ting news fea­tures unique sports bet­ting arti­cles as well as cur­rent sports news com­piled from lead­ing wire ser­vices. This news arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more NHL news see: South­east: Will Pan­thers, Jets make a splash?.

Keep cur­rent with real time NHL odds and all of the lat­est Hockey reports. In addi­tion to NHL bet­ting odds, we pro­vide bet­tors gam­bling on the Stan­ley Cup Finals, 1st period odds, many NHL prop bets plus the daily grand salami.When bet­tors look for NHL odds and any other sports bet­ting odds, Lines­Maker is among the most respected resources for online sports betting.

Launched in 1999, Lines­Maker has a a long track record as one of the world’s sig­na­ture web­sites for pro­vid­ing sports bet­ting odds as well as a secure, trusted and sim­ple to use online wager­ing environment.

Related Posts:

• Mason Gets Call for Jets vs. Panthers
• Jets Curse Out Sea­hawks After They Draft Bruce Irvin
• Dev­ils Get Past Panthers
• Jets’ Amer­i­can Play­ers Say No Thanks to Worlds
• Pan­thers Claw Back to Take Series Lead

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•