The Florida Panthers have signed center Evan Rodrigues to a four-year deal worth $12 million, with a $3 million AAV. Rodrigues will be entering his ninth season in the NHL as the Panthers will be his fourth NHL team, as he has previously played for the Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Colorado Avalanche. He has put up 69 goals and 99 assists in 385 games. This is a strong-depth signing for the Panthers, who are coming off a year in which they found a way to make it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals only to lose to the Vegas Golden Knights in five games. Over the course of the past two seasons, Rodrigues has started to find his scoring touch as he put up 19 goals with the Penguins during the 2021-22 season and had 16 goals last year for the Avs. Heading into the next season, I would expect Rodrigues to fit into the Panther’s middle six. The Panthers currently have 23 players signed for next season and half less than half a million dollars in cap space left, so if they are making any more moves, they would have to come via trades which I would expect to be cap dumps.
