Panthers Notebook: Trade Deadline Eve

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.  — The clock is ticking with the NHL Trade Deadline just one day away. 

The Florida Panthers have already made a bulk of moves ahead of Friday’s 3 p.m. ET deadline: trading for Seth Jones and Vitek Vanecek, and also signing former fourth-overall pick Jesse Puljujarvi to a two-way contract.

Before rosters across the league are set for the postseason push, the Panthers will host a hungry Columbus Blue Jackets team that is in the middle of an extremely tight Eastern Conference Wild Card race.

The Panthers will be running the same lineup they iced in Monday night’s 2-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lighting. Sergei Bobrovsky will get the start against his former team, head coach Paul Maurice confirmed.

Onto the notebook.

Vanecek arrives

It’s been a wild week for goaltender Vitek Vanecek. 

On Tuesday he was ready to man the crease for the San Jose Sharks against the Buffalo Sabres. 

Then he was told he wasn’t going to be playing. 

The following day he was traded to the Panthers — going from the last place team in the NHL to the defending Stanley Cup champions. 

“I was supposed to play in Buffalo [then] they told me I’m not playing,” Vanecek told the media in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday. “Next day [the trade] happened. 

“I’m really happy. It’s a really good team here. They won the Stanley Cup last year so I’m really excited to be a Panther.”

He’ll form a goalie tandem with future Hall of Famer Sergei Bobrovsky, whom Vanecek met for the first time on Thursday.

“He’s a great goalie, I can say he’s the best in the NHL,” Vanecek said of Bobrovsky. “I just met him in the morning, I didn’t know him [before]. I’m going to talk to him more for sure.”

He added: “I want to be a good guy for him, I don’t want anything else. I’ll just try to help him — I know he’s going to help me.”

Boqvist extends

This wasn’t a trade, but the Panthers are definitely happy to lock up a valuable player going forward. 

Jesper Boqvist, 26, signed a two-year, $1.5M AAV contract extension with the Panthers on Wednesday.

In his first season with the Panthers, Boqvist has 12 goals, 10 assists and 22 points in 59 games while playing mostly on the team’s bottom-six. 

Boqvist is currently on a one-year, league-minimum ($775K) deal.

“Obviously it’s a great feeling, I’m super excited,” Boqvist said after signing his extension. “I think kind of right away I wanted to be here and now I got the opportunity to do so. I’m super happy.”

Panthers sign Puljujarvi to two-way contract 

Jesse Puljujarvi  hasn’t had the best luck after the Edmonton Oilers drafted him fourth-overall in the 2016 NHL Draft.

After seven years in the Oilers organization  — with two Liiga (top Finnish pro league) stints sprinkled between — the 26-year-old had a cup of coffee with both the Carolina Hurricanes and most recently the Pittsburgh Penguins, before getting placed on unconditional waivers by the Penguins last month.

The Finnish forward has been given one more chance to prove it in the show. On Wednesday, the Panthers signed Puljujarvi to a one-year, two-way contract ($775K NHL salary). 

Upon his release from the Penguins, Puljujarvi signed an amateur tryout agreement (ATO) with Panthers AHL affiliate Charlotte Checkers. 

In seven games with the Checkers, he had 0 goals and 3 assists. 

The Panthers placed Puljujarvi on waivers after the signing for reassignment to the AHL. If he clears — and remains on the Checkers roster at 3 p.m. ET on Friday —  it makes him eligible to be sent down from the NHL at any time for the remainder of the season