There has been two underlying currents to Jonathan Marchessault's play this season. First, could he repeat his 30-goal production from a year ago in Florida? Second, would the Panthers look terrible for not protecting him the expansion draft?
Not only is the answer to both questions a resounding "yes," Florida GM Dale Tallon must wonder from time to time what might have been.
Seemingly every summer, Tallon talks about wanting and needing that 30-goal scorer. He had one right in his backyard at a dirt cheap $750,000 per year contract and let him go.
Sure there were tough decisions to be made, and Tallon decided to put more emphasis on protecting his young defensive core than offensive. In time he might look like a genius. But right now the optics are about as bad as they can get as reports emerged that Marchessault signed a six-year $30 million extension with the Golden Knights Wednesday.
Certainly he deserves it.
One would think that a player that showed scoring capabilities AND was entering a contract year would be the perfect player to keep around in Florida. He certainly is motivated to get some financial security.
Vegas has the second most points in the NHL behind Tampa. It's beyond incredible.
Their record is indicative of the incredible effort night in and night out from their leading scorer in Marchessault. Not only is he showing his first full NHL season last year in Florida was no fluke, he's on pace to annihilate last year's statistics (30G, 21A, -21, in 75 games).
Marchessault has 37 points in 35 games with 15 goals. At +13 he leads a very balanced offensive lineup with William Karlsson, James Neal, David Perron, Erik Haula, and another Florida gaffe, Reilly Smith.
Former Panther and current Vegas head coach Gerard Gallant couldn't be happier with the mistakes Florida made. While he will give diplomatic answers to the media when asked about his former team, surely he is ecstatic their knee-jerk moves landed him a great job with great players he already knew as Panthers.
Some of the reasoning coming from the Panthers is they knew Marchessault would be due a hefty raise after this season and they chose to keep one of their defenseman instead. The contract he signed today was the writing on the wall they wanted to avoid.
But why?
Is Marchessault worth his new deal averaging over a point a game? Of course.
Will he sustain this pace for the rest of this year and beyond? We'll see.
But what Vegas showed today is they will reward the players that deserve it. The expansion draft puts them in a unique position to make such deals with so many players with one year left on their current contracts. Six of their current starters are set to be UFAs this summer. There will likely be many more new Knights next year as the roster stabilizes.
With David Clarkson out indefinitely with chronic back pain, the two highest paid players (non-goaltenders) that are signed beyond this year are Marchessault and Smith. It was spun this was the reason Tallon was willing to let both of these players go. They are or would be expensive, and they weren't "his" guys to begin with.
When Tallon was stripped of his full GM duties in early 2015 and the team went to a more analytical model, Tom Rowe and Co. signed Smith to his five-year, $25 million extension and also signed Marchessault as the steal of NHL free agency.
Marchessault was probably the only bright spot in a debacle of a season. After setting a franchise record with 103 points the year before, the Panthers were back towards the bottom of the league looking for answers.
Tallon was put back in full charge to find those answers. Whatever those answers were, they were going to be part of his blueprint while being financially "responsible."
After spending relatively close to the cap over the last few seasons, there were reports last summer that Panthers ownership/management imposed an internal cap at $65 million, $10 million below the league cap. The Panthers vehemently denied such a standing order.
At this moment, if you take the projected cap space of $6,863,733 and the current cap space of $13,727,466, the middle of that is $10,295,599. That must be an eerie coincidence.
Taking into account the monstrous and potentially questionable contracts of Aaron Ekblad and Keith Yandle, Tallon likely looked at Marchessault and Smith as the easy fat to cut to get the others paid. To be fair Smith had a terrible 2016-17 season and might not have been the best fit in the Florida locker room.
The only problem is it backfired. The Panthers season might be going quite a bit differently had Smith (traded) and Marchessault (unprotected) been retained at the expense of a defenseman. Tallon likes Smith and traded for him, but he likely never would have signed him to what he considered an albatross of an extension.
Obviously not all teams are created equal, but in a vacuum Marchessault would be tied for the Florida team lead in points, and Smith would be fourth.
The Panthers have had their stretches where they are starving for goals. Add those issues to a stretch of 8 games where Alex Petrovic was a healthy scratch and Panther fans had to be wondering why protecting defensemen was the focus if they weren't going to play.
Now Panther fans look out west and see three people that should probably still be wearing their colors. Two solid forwards and a good coach steering the ship has Vegas on pace to destroy all expansion team records. Not only that, they will be a force to be reckoned with in the postseason.
Marchessault's new contract is what Tallon wanted to avoid, but a talent he desperately needs. Vegas benefited in a big way by Florida's tough spot.
Consequently, everyone has received the memo that Vegas is no joke.
Unfortunately for Florida fans, many feel the joke is on them. Can you blame them?
Dan Spiegel
Florida Panthers Media
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