Panthers give SURPRISING updates... This has BIG implications

The Florida Panthers just came out with major updates regarding Jonah Gajevich and Brad Marchand. They have major implications. Welcome to this episode of Panthers Digest. I'm your host Greg Andrews. Comment, like, share, subscribe, hype up the video. I appreciate everybody tuning in to support me, support the channel, and support the Florida Panthers. Behind me, by the way, that is the new Florida Panthers center logo that will be on the ice this season. It's pretty awesome. Here, I'm going to move to the side. I love it. I think it's great. I love the one from last season. I like the one from this season. They're different. Love it though. So anyways, a lot to get to today. I'm going to try to keep it as short as possible. Obviously, the lighting is not very good because I am out of town for work, other work, directing, other sporting events like football, volleyball, soccer, baseball, basketball. I do that on the side as well. So anyways, what we're going to get to today, it's a pretty big deal. First, I wanted to kick things off by talking about a revision in the collective bargaining agreement. And this is pretty much what we're looking at with what happened. So yesterday, new collective bargaining agreement tweaks here. The changes were the elimination of pre-camp fitness testing. That is something new. Extending the regular season to 84 games. We already knew that was going to happen. Limiting training camp to two weeks and four pre-season games. And you can see there, players that have 100 games in the NHL only have to play in two of them. So those are some of the changes that have recently happened. How does that affect our team? Well, the crazy part is this. When we talk about fitness level, injury, stuff like that, with shortened pre-seasons, shortened mini-camps, we're talking, all right, guys' bodies might not be ready to go. But the good news is a lot of the players have said, hey, like Aaron Eckblad said, we have already been skating for the last several weeks. A lot of us have, and I'm sure a lot of the other players in the NHL have been doing the same thing now that the pre-season has been shortened. They've been doing their own workouts, meeting up with some coaches at times, other players. So that's good news. Now, what is going on with the cats? This is what we saw at the very first day yesterday of mini-camp, it says, or training camp, whatever you want to call it. The top line is going to look like it's going to be Brady Kachuk, Barkov at center, and then Reinhardt on the other side. They work together on drills, and I'm sure we're going to continue to see that. When I was watching an interview with Paul Maurice, the reason why he is doing this is because Barkov, in his entire career as a Florida Panther, never has really worked with a big man on his line. And he said, you know, Barkov has had to shoulder a lot of the responsibility and a lot of the weight on that first line for years, and now he's going to get a guy that's a big body, fast skater, good with his hands, physical player, that's going to take some of the weight off his shoulders, and he's going to be able to actually be a guy who can really do a great, even better job than he's already done at passing, finding Brady Kachuk in front of the net. So, I love the move, I think it's fantastic, we all saw this one coming, so they're going to continue that, that looks like it's going to be our top line. Now, we're talking about defensive pairings. Kulikov and Kunis work together, we anticipated that as well. Seventh defenseman looks like it will be Belinskis, which is good news. So, I'm excited to hear that, I like Belinskis, I think he's the player that we should have as our seventh defenseman. I don't think there's anybody else that we should think would belong in that position, but Belinskis is going to be that guy, and we already know the pairings that we have, Forsling and Ekblad, excuse me, our top pair, Mikula Jones as our second pair, and that rounds out everything, going from bottom to top. So, let's keep going here. Next up, the players that have injuries right now. There is an update on Brad Marchand, but first we're going to talk about Jona Gajovic. The bad news for Jona Gajovic is this, he is going to be out indefinitely. I'm going to put up the numbers here so you can see a little bit better to the right. Indefinitely. He got hurt last year, 10 games into the season, those are his numbers from the previous season, these are the numbers from last year, here we go, give it a second. So, last year, 10 games played, three points only, only three assists, plus two rating. Not having a bad year last year, we all know what he does, he does all the dirty work, kind of gets those, you know, bottom line TOIs, and I mean, you know, he's a very physical, grinding out player that gets out there and likes to get under the opponent's skin, he does a very good job of it, and we all know the famous picture of him going like that with the bloody mouth after a fight. The bad news is he did have surgery last season, it was a neck injury, and it just never seemed to heal right. He was supposed to come back last season, he didn't, kept rehabbing it over the summer, still not back to where he needs to be. So he is out indefinitely, and I'm going to tell you in a moment why that makes something about this training camp very, very interesting, and now I understand why Nathan Bastian was brought in. Other guys have been brought in that we've been giving them opportunities to come in, be healthy at training camp, and put together some really good competition. There's a reason why, but first I'm going to talk about Brad Marchand really quick. There's an update on him as well, I already said they're going to be very conservative with Brad Marchand coming back. The word is his return looks like it might not be until November. The very, very, very, when I say the very end of October, I mean the very last game that we have in October might be a good return date, maybe a little bit sooner than that, but the word is he should be missing pretty much the whole month of October, unless he looks really sharp, he feels great, he's cleared, he feels like he should get back on the ice as well, but there is no rush to get him back. So he might miss the whole month of October, possibly coming back, but maybe a few days to spare heading into the month of November. So he is going to miss the whole month of October. So what does this all mean? What's really crazy is this. Vilmanis made such a great impression last year. He was skating yesterday with the third line. He was with Lundell and Oestrein and this is big. The reason why I'm saying this is big is because, well, we now technically have an opening on the fourth line as well as that third line with Gajevic being out indefinitely. Who is going to play on the line with Ehlers and Hathaway as things sit today? Patrick Leine, Nathan Bastian, Cole Schwent. Who is it going to be? There are so many players that are on this team vying for a roster spot. We now have potentially two spots, sorry, two spots available. Somebody play on that fourth line and a 13th player for forwards. Who is it going to be? Guys, tell me down below. Who do you think will be the person to fill in the hole on the fourth line? Because I think Vilmanis rightfully should get that third line spot where Marchand usually sits. I think he's earned it. I think it's worth it to give it a shot. Worst case scenario, whoever you bring in on your fourth line. If it is, let's say, Hathaway who's playing great or whoever else they bring in to fill in the spot for Gajevic, maybe that guy's having a great season. You say, okay, he's doing better than Vilmanis. Vilmanis is starting off a little bit cold. This guy's hot right now. Let's put him up on that third line and see how he matches. So be it. But I still think Vilmanis deserves a spot on the opening day roster. We're going to see what happens this preseason. That's the biggest thing. We're going to see Vilmanis play on the third line. How he plays will dictate whether or not he will be on that opening day roster on the third line or on the fourth line. But guys, take a look at the training camp roster. Tell me who you guys think will end up being on that fourth line filling in for Gaj. Who will be the 13th forward? And do you think Vilmanis does deserve that spot on the third line? Will he stay there and keep it? I think he's going to be better than he was last season. Considerably better because of the experience he gained over the last five months. I think he's going to be great. So again, it's not good news for the Cats, but it's an interesting situation that they're in. Because with Gajevic out, it ideally opens up two roster spots. Again, I don't think they're going to say, all right, we're going to place Brad Marchant on the LTIR list. I think Vilmanis will take up the spot. Gajevic, they'll probably have to place on LTIR. So then we can we can ideally get a player at the veteran minimum and be able to sign up with the open roster spot. And then get our 13th forward obviously. So saves our cap room. Who knows when Gajevic will be back. Obviously we should all wish him the speediest of recoveries and hopefully whatever complications have happened post-surgery, whatever's not working out right, that he does feel better. Because spine, neck injuries, scary because they could be career enders. And let's hope that's not the case. Let's just hope he's still working through some stuff. That neck is just feeling a little too stiff. And you know, it's just going to take a little bit more time to work out the little kinks and things that are going on with what is ailing him at the moment. But that's it for this episode of Panther's Digest, guys. Comment down below again with everything you heard about the first line, having Brady Kachuk on there. You know, again, one of the craziest things I just want to tell you really quick before I go. Paul Maurice has been in awe of what Bill Zito has been able to do. He talked about him as well on the show saying like every move that he has made, it's because he is so optimistic about going after any player. He's very positive. He's never looking at it being like, oh, it's going to be completely out of reach. Paul Maurice told the story when Matthew Kachuk was being eyed by the Florida Panthers and Bill Zito talked to Paul Maurice and said, hey, what do you think about us adding Matthew Kachuk? Paul Maurice said, hey man, yeah, if you can get him, bring him, that'd be great. Bill literally said to Paul, hey, I think I'm going to get chewed out by trying to make this trade if I'm able to make it happen, but I want to make it happen. I think it's for the best of the organization. From what I'm giving up and what I'm getting back in return, people are going to chew me out alive and let's hope it works out for the best and I think it will because he's a phenomenal player. Trade happened 30 minutes after he got a phone call with Paul Maurice, said the trade happened. Paul couldn't believe it. He didn't think it was going to happen. Then the Seth Jones trade happened. He didn't think that was going to happen. The Brad Marchand, same thing there. Same thing with Brady Kachuk. Everything that he has done, he's made it happen. Call Paul Maurice. Paul doesn't think it's going to happen. Bill has made it happen. The man is a wizard. I just wanted to let you guys know that. There's a lot of good stuff out there. Listen to those interviews. It's awesome. Go find them there, Paul Maurice interviews, day one training camp. Google it. Anyways, guys, that's it. Thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it. Until next time, have some more updates about training camp, about the lines, about what others are seeing when they're there. And if you are going to FanFest tomorrow, have a great time there. I wish I could be there. For those of you going to be on Sunday, have a great time there as well. You can also catch me on a podcast on Monday night. I'll share details of that tomorrow. But until that time, go cats.