1 trade Panthers must make before NHL Olympic break

The Florida Panthers are not having the season they envisioned when raising their second straight Stanley Cup back in June. Aleksander Barkov has missed the entire season due to an ACL injury suffered in training camp. Matthew Tkachuk just came back from an injury of his own. And the team is missing other important depth pieces, as well.

The Panthers have still shown glimpses of the skill and physicality that won them two Cups. This has helped them be the top non-playoff Wild Card contender at this time. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean as much as it might for their counterparts in the West. Florida trails the Boston Bruins by eight points for the final postseason spot in the East.

On February 4th, the NHL will freeze its rosters for the upcoming Winter Olympics. On March 6th, the 2026 NHL Trade Deadline will come to pass. There is going to be a lot of activity across the league over the next month. As a result, there will be speculation as to what Florida does in that time to improve its positioning.

There may be a temptation to punt the season and sell their pending unrestricted free agents. This is an avenue general manager Bill Zito can explore. However, this path feels a bit unlikely. Florida is known for its aggressiveness, on and off the ice. If they make a trade, it will be to add to the roster.

With this in mind, here is one trade the Panthers should make before the rosters freeze on February 4th.

Panthers should avoid splash, trade for stability in Connor Murphy

Another temptation that could call to Zito this time of the year is to make the big splash. It’s something he’s accustomed to, having swung some major trades at the NHL Trade Deadline in recent memory. Seth Jones and Brad Marchand joined the Panthers last season at the deadline, for instance.

He could simply go for broke once again. Trade for Artemi Panarin, for example. Sign him to an extension, watch him play even better than he is right now. Florida goes on the run of a lifetime, and they usurp some poor Atlantic Division team after a late-season collapse.

However, the Panthers should exercise a bit of caution this year. They don’t have the means to truly make that sort of splash without some unreal creativity. Is that sort of creativity worth depleting more of your draft stock for a season that may end before the postseason begins?

Besides, a trade for a player like Panarin may not be entirely necessary. Marchand is playing well this season. Once Tkachuk gets his feet under him, he should return to form, as well. The Panthers are 10th in the NHL for Expected Goals Per 60 Minutes, according to Evolving Hockey. This is not a bad offensive team.

What the Panthers need right now is defensive stability. They rank 21st in Expected Goals Allowed, which is not great. A lot of this can be chalked up to their lackluster goaltending. One can also point to their injuries on defense, with Jones and Dmitry Kulikov being out.

With limited resources, the Panthers should return to the Chicago Blackhawks well and make a run at veteran Connor Murphy. Murphy is a pending free agent, so they only need to make the money work for this season. Furthermore, the Blackhawks could retain half of his $4.4 million cap hit to make this even easier to stomach.

Murphy is a fantastic defensive presence on the right side of the blueline. He ranks eighth in Defensive Goals Above Replacement this season. He’s an especially strong defender at 5v5 this season, ranking seventh in even-strength DGAR. Over the last six seasons, he ranks 15th in overall DGAR and 12th in even-strength DGAR.

Murphy would allow Uvis Balinskis to move down to the third pairing. He provides the sort of shutdown defensive play that would take pressure off Sergei Bobrovsky and Daniil Tarasov in goal. And he shouldn’t cost the Panthers an arm and a leg, which is important considering their resources. The Panthers may need to fight off other teams, but Murphy makes total sense for the two-time defending champions.

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