Not long after the NHL Awards show in Las Vegas concluded on Wednesday night, the Panthers made their gamble with Keith Yandle pay off. The Panthers signed the impending free-agent defenceman to a seven-year deal worth $44.5 million in a move to bolster their power-play unit. The Panthers had traded a sixth-round pick in this week’s NHL draft to the Rangers for the rights to negotiate with Yandle before free agency opens, and they will also send a 2017 fourth-round pick to New York as a result of the deal being consummated.
Yandle, who has a no-move clause for the first six years of the deal, becomes the highest-paid player on the team, surpassing the $5.9-million-per-season contract extension that young center Aleksander Barkov signed earlier this year.
“We’re thrilled that top players want to win in Florida,” Panthers co-owner Doug Cifu wrote in a text message after Yandle’s deal was signed early Thursday morning. “Keith wants to win the Stanley Cup in Florida, and that’s why we were his top priority and vice-versa.”
Last year, the highest-paid Panther was defenseman Brian Campbell, who made $7.14 million in his final season of an eight-year deal that Panthers president of hockey operations Dale Tallon gave him while both were with the Blackhawks.
It appears that the left-handed Yandle will replace Campbell, who is expected to test the market when free agency begins on July 1. Campbell may want to return to Chicago, where he won the Stanley Cup in 2010 and has maintained a home with his wife and two children.
Panthers general manager Tom Rowe and Tallon have made it clear that the No. 1 priority this offseason is to bolster the team’s 23rd-ranked power play, which is Yandle’s forte.
“We wanted to get a leg up on it,” Tallon said Tuesday of the trade that gave Florida a chance to negotiate with Yandle. “It was a good opportunity so why not go for it? We looked at what our No. 1 deficiency was last year which was the power play. Yandle gives you 50 points a year and he’s very good on the power play. He’s got a great shot. He’s a quarterback and is offensively gifted. That was a big need for our team and that’s why we decided to try and go for it.”
Yandle, a Boston-area native who will turn 30 before next season, is a younger version of the 37-year-old Campbell, with the ability to move the puck and quarterback the power play. However, despite his age, Campbell is one of the most durable players in the NHL, having not missed a game in his past five seasons and riding an iron-man streak of 385 games.
Campbell is also coming off a solid season in which he led all NHL defensemen with a career-best plus-31 rating. For his career, he’s plus-51. Yandle was minus-4 last season and has a minus-32 career rating.
Neither Yandle nor Campbell are known for their physical style. Both are strong in puck-possession and shot-generating analytics.
The 6-foot-1, 190-pound Yandle had five goals and 42 assists last season, with two goals and 20 assists coming on the Rangers’ 14th-ranked power play. The 20 power-play helpers were tied for fifth among NHL defensemen.
Yandle, who has averaged more than 50 points in his past three seasons, led all defensemen with power-play assists in each of the previous two seasons with 27 and 28 respectively. The Panthers have an abundance of young, skilled left-handed defensemen, including Mike Matheson, 22, rising prospect Ian McCoshen, 20, and Dmitry Kulikov, 25, who will be an unrestricted free agent after next season. They recently traded right-handed defenseman Erik Gudbranson to Vancouver for young forward Jared McCann, who is expected to bolster scoring on the third line.
Steve Kamper, a reliable stay-at-home right-handed blueliner with one more season on his contract, could fill Gudbranson’s role, but expect the Panthers to find a right-handed defenseman in free agency. They do have promising right-handers in the pipeline such as Michael Dowling and MacKenzie Weegar, but they are likely at least a year away.
Yandle will most likely team with All-Star defenseman Aaron Ekblad or Alex Petrovic next season.
Rowe said this week that McCoshen, who recently signed his three-year, entry-level contract, is projected to make the team this year or next. He also acknowledged that, while the Panthers have said they’re not shopping Kulikov, several teams have shown an interest in the seven-year veteran.