Panthers Lock Down Trocheck

On Saturday afternoon, the Florida Panthers announced that they have agreed to terms with restricted free agent forward Vincent Trocheck, extending his stay with the club for at least another six seasons with his new deal.  The deal will be worth $28.5 million in total, which will work out to be a $4.75 million cap hit per season.

It was an excellent 2016 season for the 22-year old American, scoring 25 goals and 53 points in 76 games, establishing himself as one of the go-to guys for the team, when it comes to offense.  He finished in the top 100 in overall scoring (91st) and was 64th among all forwards as well.

The Panthers have not been shy in this off-season making moves, which should be good for guys like Trocheck, as some improvements to the team's blueline will help get the puck up to the forwards a bit quicker and the transition offense should come more naturally to these guys.  I get the feeling that there is still another level that some of these Panthers players will be able to reach, assuming all goes well in the year.  A very exciting time, indeed.

As for their spending, they have been quite responsible for the most part and there will likely be some excess cap space when the season gets started.  I have 21 players penciled in for their roster, which currently includes three goalies, coming in at $67.6 million, leaving about $5.4 million to play with.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Aleksander Barkov	5.900	Keith Yandle	6.350	Roberto Luongo	5.333
Vincent Trocheck	4.750	Jason Demers	4.500	James Reimer	3.400
Nick Bjugstad	4.100	Alex Petrovic	1.050
Jaromir Jagr	4.000	Aaron Ekblad	0.925
Jussi Jokinen	4.000
Reilly Smith	3.425
Jonathan Huberdeau	3.250
Dave Bolland	5.500	Jakub Kindl	2.400	Reto Berra	1.450
Derek MacKenzie	1.300	Mark Pysyk	1.125
Jonathan Marchessault	0.750	Michael Matheson	0.925
Colton Sceviour	0.950
Jayce Hawryluk	0.925	Ian McCoshen	0.925	Sam Brittain	0.750
Lawson Crouse	0.894	Michael Downing	0.820	Samuel Montembeault	0.726
Jared McCann	0.894	Linus Hultstrom	0.793	Colin Stevens	0.710
Kyle Rau	0.859	Mackenzie Weegar	0.680	Mike McKenna	0.575
Dryden Hunt	0.809	Josh Brown	0.658
Shawn Thornton	0.750	Steven Kampfer	0.613
Juho Lammikko	0.718	Brent Regner	0.600
Greg McKegg	0.700
Steven Hodges	0.685
Shane Harper	0.650
Graham Black	0.650
Connor Brickley	0.650
Chase Balisy	0.635
Paul Thompson	0.575

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, injured/retired cap hits, in the system