With training camp about three weeks away and the Florida Panthers’ roster largely settled, the club is again in that familiar PTO conversation. Like most teams, Florida usually brings a few players in on professional tryouts, and this summer has even sparked speculation about former 40-goal scorer Patrik Laine. That remains speculation for now.
The Panthers’ recent track record with PTOs hasn’t been overflowing with hits, but a couple of those camp invites have turned into real storylines.
Last season, Noah Gregor came to camp on a PTO, earned a contract before the year began and made Florida’s opening-night roster. He split the season between the Panthers and AHL Charlotte Checkers, putting up four goals and nine points in 37 games with Florida and 17 points in 26 games with Charlotte. Gregor has since signed with the Winnipeg Jets, so he won’t be back in Fort Lauderdale next month.
If you zoom out, the biggest PTO success story in Panthers history may still be Brad Boyes.
Boyes arrived at camp in 2013, around the time Vinnie Viola bought the team, and made enough of an impression to stick. Florida’s offseason that year was unusually quiet because the franchise was for sale, and Boyes’ path to a spot was pretty straightforward: show up and prove he belonged.
He did exactly that. After spending the previous season with the New York Islanders, Boyes signed an NHL contract with Florida on Sept. 28, once then-GM Dale Tallon had more room to work after Viola’s purchase and the addition of Tim Thomas in net.
That season turned into a rough one for the Panthers overall. They went 29-45-8 and finished with 66 points. Kevin Dineen was fired, Roberto Luongo came back in a blockbuster deadline deal with Vancouver, and the team’s scoring chart was thin behind Nick Bjugstad’s 38 points and rookie Sasha Barkov’s eight goals and 24 points in 54 goals during a season interrupted by knee injuries, including a season-ending injury at the 2014 Olympics.
Boyes, though, found a way to stand out. He led the Panthers with 21 goals. Florida later rewarded him with a new two-year deal worth $2.6 million annually, though the team eventually bought out the final year after he scored 14 goals in 2014-15.
Another PTO pickup ended up becoming part of a much bigger run.
Eric Staal was not a typical tryout addition, given his history as the former captain of the Paul Maurice-coached Carolina Hurricanes. But after not playing in the NHL the previous season, he joined Florida on a PTO in 2022, shortly after the Panthers signed his brother Marc. It was a low-risk, high-reward move, and Staal came to camp expecting to make the team even though the cap situation kept him from signing immediately.
Even after camp ended, he still didn’t have a contract, but he stayed in South Florida and worked with the team as a non-roster player. Once Aaron Ekblad got hurt in October and cap space opened up, Staal finally signed.
“I have signed a few contracts in my day, but that one felt good,” he said that day.
“I had put the time and the effort. I spent the when no one’s looking time wondering what was ahead, but I was staying with it. I have definitely signed different types of contracts over my time, that one definitely felt very good and it was a culmination of a bunch of people helping push me to get back to this point.”
Staal gave Florida exactly what it needed in a bottom-six role, playing 72 regular-season games and finishing with 14 goals and 29 points. In the playoffs, he appeared in 21 games and helped push the Panthers to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1996.
The team was inconsistent for much of that 2022-23 season, but when the moment got biggest, Florida found its game. Staal never backed off from what he believed the Panthers could do.
”I am just proud to be associated with this group,” Staal said after Florida’s 4-3 win over Carolina in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference final.
“This is such a determined, competitive bunch of guys. And they have been all year.
It was tough at times. But it is fun in this moment.
Yeah, we have work ahead of us but we can enjoy this.
“I did not say that because I did not believe it. I did.
I knew it. But it wasn’t going to come easy because it doesn’t in this league.
It is just fun to be with these guys.”
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