2025 Panthers Prospect Report
2025-02-27The last few months of the season are upon us and things are looking great in Florida. The team is currently sitting at the top of the league and is firing on all cylinders; the offence is at the top of the league and they are in the top 5 in goals allowed. So with very few picks in 2025 and a team that will likely continue to add before the deadline, we figured it’d be a good time to do a quick prospect report on what the Panthers have in the pipeline.
GOALTENDERS
The Panthers currently have four goalies in the prospect pool, two that have already turned pro and another two still in the development pipeline. Domenic Divincentis has recovered nicely from a bit of a rough last year in the OHL. His numbers at the ECHL were fairly pedestrian but he has completely outclassed Milic and Kahkonnen in his time with the Manitoba Moose, posting a .917, which is thirty points higher than the next guy on the team. The other pro, the 6’5” Carter Gylander, is stuck behind some fierce competition with some long time vets and a 1st round prospect taking up the playing time in Grand Rapids. As someone who also took a step back in his last year in College, it’s been reassuring that he has also proven his quality with the Toledo Walleye in the ECHL.
After serving as a backup to the Memorial Cup bound Seattle Thunderbirds in his draft year, Scott Ratzlaff has had to really weather the storm the last few years. The TBirds have been near the bottom of the league the last two years when Scott has served as a starter, to no fault of his own. He has still sat himself in the top 10 in sv% while sitting in the 20s in GAA, one of the few stable elements on that team - hence why he likely wears an “A” as a goalie. In his third year in the NCAA, Tyler Muszelik jumped from UNH to UCONN and has easily had his best year to date. Whether he parlays that into a pro contract or head back for a fourth year will be the question.
DEFENCEMEN
Likely the most talented spot in the pipeline, but we’ll start off with the bottom of the list. First off they have a trio of defencemen who are in Europe that will likely not have any impact in North America in Victor Berglund, Jesper Sellgren and Anton Johanneson. Connor Corcoran’s hot start in the ECHL was successful enough to get him full-time at the AHL level this year, but still sits with an AHL contract. Gannon Laroque looked promising coming out of the WHL, but hasn’t played at all this year, which now marks 3 years in a row with massively impacted injury plagued years.
The next trio is all out of the NCAA. Noah Beck’s offensive game dried up completely in his fourth year at Clarkson, before moving to Arizona State this year and returning to form as the number one option on D there. In his sophomore season at Boston University, Gavin McCarthy has been able to take that step forward as some of the key guys left for the pro ranks this year. On the other end of things, Aidan Hreschuk hasn’t been able to showcase the offensive abilities that got him drafted at any point during his college career, and with him finishing off his 4th year there, the end of the road might be near.
Next up are three of the top picks by Florida in the 2024 Draft. Third overall pick, Ayrtom Levshunov, had a rough start after getting injured in rookie camp. The Belarusian has slowly taken a key role on the IceHogs blueline, and the confidence has been growing for the 19 year old in the AHL, as his offence has hit a key and steady rate with 9 points in his last 10 games. Another of the team’s top 10 picks, Zayne Parekh is just building on what was already an impressive OHL career. Since the turn of the calendar to 2025, he has been absolutely unstoppable with 46 points in those 22 games. With only 2 goals to go, he will be the first OHL defenceman to have multiple 30 goal years. The Panthers not only drafted the highest scoring defenceman in the OHL this season, they also managed to grab the second with Henry Mews. He was lights out with his hometown Ottawa 67s, before getting dealt to Sudbury, where he continues to be a dominant force on the offensive side of the game.
FORWARDS
After some graduations recently and focusing their top picks on defence, the forward pool is very thin at the moment. Leevi Aaltonen has never come close to showing the promise he did at the U18s and is fading away in the Swedish 2nd division. James Hardie was a goal scoring force in the OHL, but never found his footing in the ECHL, bouncing between 4 teams in 2 years, before weirdly heading to the German 2nd League for the last four games of the year. A quartet of KHLers are in the mix too. Like Hardie, Pavel Gogolev at least parlayed a successful year in the OHL into a hot start in the AHL, which earned him an NHL contract. Since then he proved he could be a dominant ECHLer, but not much else, being fairly unproductive in two seasons in Russia. Yegor Spiridonov’s future success was always going to hinge on him being a big defensive centre, and while those elements are there, the extreme lack of offence probably squashes any attempt at crossing to NA - with only 3 points in his last 3 years in the KHL. Another big centre, Ilya Safonov, had a huge year in 2022-23 with Ak Bars Kazan, but has failed to build on that the following two years. Vasili Atanasov put up one of the best seasons for a U21 player in the KHL last year and is on pace for a similar output this year on a struggling Torpedo team, where those numbers have him near the top of team scoring.
In North America, the Panthers hold a handful of prospects in the development ranks. Brodie Ziemer has had an impressive freshman year at the University of Minnesota, and was one of the standout forwards for the gold medal winning USA team at the WJC. In his second year at Northeastern, Dylan Hryckowian continues to be one of the key guys on offence while also showing his 200 foot game that will be pivotal to his success at the next level. It will be interesting to see if he can follow the exact same path as his older brother, who has already suited up at the NHL level in his first year pro. Koehn Ziemmer’s D+1 was injury plagued and while he hasn’t quite hit built on his draft year numbers, it’s been reassuring to see him be the leading goal scorer on a good Prince George team. Ethan Miedema on the other hand had a rough D+1, and he didn’t have injuries as an excuse. The big 6’4” winger has at least moved back in the positive column, setting career high in points and goals in his 19 year old season.
At the AHL level it gets very focused in one city in the league. Blake McLaughlin is now in his 3rd straight year of being productive in the ECHL, but never finding his footing in the AHL. Then there are the four Toronto Marlies in the system; Ty Voit, Roni Hirvonen, Ryan Tverberg and Nikita Grebenkin. Voit actually hasn’t suited up for the Marlies this year, the diminutive forward was injured in game 1 last year and while it’s been great to see him healthy, the dynamic playmaking that was shown in junior hasn’t been on full display. Another injury plagued forward, Roni has at least built on his first year in North America, but hasn’t made progress to be considered for the pro team. Tverberg had an excellent first year as a pro, but has been shuffled down as more talented players entered the system. Nikita on the other hand has fit in well with the Marlies in his first year in North America, and has even got 7 games at the NHL level as a reward.
James Hardie.. The true "how the heck didn't it translate" guy.
2025 Panthers Prospect Report
A look at what is in Florida's system