As the Panthers prepare for their annual game in Calgary, where former Flames scouts (current Panthers scouts) hit up their old favourite local joints, the team is just starting to find their chemistry after a huge mid-season shakeup just a week ago. With Florida firmly cemented in a playoff spot and hoping to secure a berth in the postseason for the first time in three years, they made a series of signifcant trades in the last month. 

 

Coming off the christmas break GM Dylan Wilson phoned up the previously mentioned Calgary Flames to bring back fan favourite Marc-Edouard Vlasic in to the fold. The Quebec native spent 4 1/2 season in Panthers red, including winning a cup in 2013. While Vlasic started to find his groove, he was joined by another former teammate. After only half a season away from the Panthers, Alex Pietrangelo was re-acquired in a blockbuster with the New York Rangers. Two fan favourites back in Florida and now the defence took a formidble shape. "To bring back two guys who were critical to our success in 2013 was a huge get for us. We never wanted to deal Alex in the first place so to bring him back after a short time away was amazing for us. Josh (Morrissey) and Haydn (Fleury) were both pegged to be big parts of our future defence, but we saw a window right now that allowed us to be aggressive in going for a championship." 

 

With the defence set, Dylan set his sights towards strengthing the forward group. In a series of trades the Panthers completely remodelled their bottom 6 and penalty kill with the likes of Patrick Eaves and Brandon Sutter, topped off with the massive addition of star Anze Kopitar. "The ability to bring in a proven winner like Anze was too hard to pass up. Allowing us to go in with Sid and Anze as our top two centres is something that most of the time you can only dream of doing. Him and Sutter are both going to be pivotal to our success on the penalty kill going forward, while Panik and Eaves are hopefully going to give us an added boost of secondary scoring."

 

With 6 trades in the last month it seems likely to assume that the Panthers are closed for business for the rest of the season. While GM Wilson backed up those comments, he left the door open to potentially making another move. "We're really happy with our team and with the limited cap space I think there's a good chance that we're done. But we do have just enough cap space that if we're able to get creative and add another bottom 6 winger or backup goalie, we might do it if it makes sense. All we do know is we're coming for the Leafs and they better get out of the way as we storm past them."