Florida Panthers viewed as frontrunner by NHL players, coaches, executives

With the curtain about to rise on the NHL season, one thing is certain.

Love them or hate them, you can’t ignore the Florida Panthers.

They will be the team on the other bench when the Carolina Hurricanes raise their Stanley Cup championship banner Tuesday at 5 p.m. to begin a tripleheader opening night on ESPN.

Yet much of the speculation and fascination is about the Panthers, who didn’t make the playoffs last season.

Pierre LeBrun, prominent NHL writer and broadcaster with The Athletic, polled 22 coaches and 13 team executives about their Stanley Cup predictions and was stunned that the Panthers received 20 of 35 votes (57.1 percent).

Colorado was the distant runner-up with six picks. Edmonton got three votes, the champion Hurricanes — who return virtually their entire team — got only two.

Meanwhile, NHL.com asked 35 prominent NHL players the same question. The Panthers were the overwhelming pick to win a third Cup in four seasons.

The Hurricanes were next with six.

Gabriel Landeskog, captain of the Western Conference defending Colorado Avalanche, was among those picking the Panthers.

“I mean, listen, they’re stacked. It doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to win, but if I had to give you a preseason favorite, that’s probably it.”

Place your bets on Tkachuk brothers scoring total

For those putting money on the line, DraftKings has the Panthers and Hurricanes as co-favorites at +650. The Avalanche is next at +700, followed by the Edmonton Oilers +800, Vegas Golden Knights +850 and Tampa Bay Lightning +1,000.

The prevailing outlook about the Panthers is they are big, they’re bad and they’re back.

Notably, three-time Selke Trophy winner Sasha Barkov is back after missing all of last season following knee surgery.

Then they added Brady Tkachuk, who can score and throw his weight around, to a lineup laden with rough-and-tumble Type A personalities including his brother Matthew, Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand. Plus a boatload of skilled scorers, playmakers and role players — Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen among them — to go with a blue line loaded in depth and experience.

Note that DraftKings is offering a prop bet on whether the Tkachuk brothers will combine to score 175-plus points during the regular season.

Can Markstrom fill Bob’s goalie pads?

It is a long and perilous gauntlet through 84 regular-season games followed by two months of pressure-packed playoffs to hoist the Cup.

There are plenty of skeptics about the Panthers despite three consecutive trips to the Cup Final and back-to-back titles before injuries tripped them up last season.

The biggest stumbling block is cited as Jacob Markstrom replacing Sergei Bobrovsky in goal.

LeBrun wrote: “Like many of the voters, I’m not sure about the Panthers’ goaltending after losing Sergei Bobrovsky. Sure, he stank last year, but so did the depleted team in front of him. Listen, don’t get me wrong, I think Florida is among the top four or five Cup contenders, to be sure. But to have dominated so overwhelmingly in a leaguewide poll is rather stunning.”

Staying health vital for Panthers rebound

It also assumes that last season’s flood of injuries was an anomaly, They lost 541 man-games to injuries, by far the most in the league.

That has been attributed in part to the toll of those three consecutive runs to the Cup Final. Having a longer offseason enabled most of the Panthers to regain health and fitness. The exceptions are Marchand, who had surgery and will miss at least the first month, and fourth-line forward Jonah Gadjovich, who remains out indefinitely.

Age can be a factor, and the Panthers have the second-oldest roster in the league (behind the L.A. Kings) with an average age of 30.5.

The season will reveal whether veteran Panthers are at their peak or past their prime.

They are physical and feisty, and they added another rock-’em, sock-’em force to the fourth line in Boko Imama.

One unnamed coach in LeBrun’s poll said, the Panthers are “very hard to play against physically and [have] depth to play that way. Lots of skill up front and on the blue line. Their true leader, Barkov, is back and hungry. They’re very much motivated knowing their window is wide open still.”

Panthers face tough road in first month

They face an immediate challenge with six of their first seven games on the road. After opening at the defending champion Hurricanes, they have a three-game California swing though San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles before finally opening at home Oct. 10 against Minnesota. Then comes a back-to-back on the road at Buffalo and Columbus.

The opening month will reveal a lot about how the Panthers actually stack up in an Eastern Conference loaded with talent.

In the ranking of top players by NHL Network, Barkov was the only Panther in the top 20, at No. 7. Matthew Tkachuk was No. 25. Reinhart was No. 48.

Brady Tkachuk didn’t crack the top 50 despite 59 points in 60 games for Ottawa last season. The three-time All-Star and Olympic gold medalist missed the early part of 2025-26 with a thumb injury.

Concern was raised when Brady Tkachuk tweaked something and missed the third period of the second preseason game. He is expected to join Barkov and Reinhart on the Panthers’ top line Tuesday.

Once again, health is essential to the Panthers’ aim for another run at the Cup and a big reason to doubt them.

Panthers revel as love-to-hate villains

In his rankings for 2026-27, Sean McIndoe of the Athletic put Panthers in the "Your Guess is as Good as Mine" category.

McIndoe wrote: “What could go wrong? Other than them being old, oft-injured, in arguably the league’s toughest division, and with goaltending that’s been upgraded from “terrible” to “maybe better”… not much.”

There are plenty voices rooting against the Panthers. Some of it is championship envy and lingering resentment of traditionalists about the rise of Sun Belt dominance.

The qualities behind their success have made them a team opponents hate to play and fans outside of South Florida despise.

They are brash, play a bruising game and constantly push boundaries. While opposing fans accuse them of playing dirty, embellishing, or getting away with post-whistle antics, Panthers fans view their style as structured, suffocating playoff hockey.

Now with two Tkachuk brothers and fresh incentive, the safest bet for the season is the Panthers are going to be louder and bolder than ever.

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