2024-25 Florida Panthers Midseason Superlatives

2024 was the Year of the Panther, well, at least if you were an NHL fan. Players, staff and fans will never forget the year in which the club won its first Stanley Cup in franchise history. 

 

As the calendars change, Panthers fans will hope the new year brings plenty of fortune their way as the team looks to defend its title as champions of the hockey world. 

 

Reflection on the previous year and season would be fun to circle back to, but the Panthers already have plenty of positives to hang high on through 38 games of the 2024-25 season. 

 

Before the new year comes, here are a few of my 2024-25 midseason superlatives for the Florida Panthers. 

MVP – Sam Reinhart

The Panthers are fortunate to have multiple elite level players on its roster. Aleksander Barkov is a top ten player in the league, and the best two-way forward in the game, Matthew Tkachuk is a star player and Gustav Forsling has solidified himself as a No. 1 defenseman. 

 

Amongst all the talent in Sunrise, Sam Reinhart sits atop the pack for most valuable player on my midseason awards.

 

Fresh off a 57-goal campaign in the 2023-24 season, which was capped off with the game winning goal in the Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, Reinhart hasn’t slowed down this season. 

 

Through 38 games, Reinhart is tied for fifth in the NHL with 22 goals and leads the Panthers with 45 points (22-23-45).

 

While his offensive numbers are great again this season, the 29-year-old’s impact on the ice stretches well beyond the offensive zone. 

 

Reinhart, who finished fourth last year in Selke voting, has shouldered a lot of defensive responsibility for the Panthers, especially when the team was without captain Aleksander Barkov — the 2023-24 Selke winner — for 10 games this season. 

 

Panthers head coach Paul Maurice utilizes the star forward in pretty much every situation possible. Off the bat, he’s the team’s biggest scoring threat on the man-advantage, leading the team with seven power play goals. Reinhart is also on the top penalty kill unit, where he has found the back of the net a league-high four times while short handed. 

 

Whether he is paired alongside Barkov — forming the league’s best two-way forward duo — or dropping down the lineup to play with Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen, Reinhart has been the top guy for the Panthers this season.

 

Best/Most Surprising Addition(s) — AJ Greer & Jesper Boqvist

Panthers general manager Bill Zito was able to retain most of the core who won the Stanley Cup in South Florida. The biggest area he needed to retool over the offseason was within the fourth line. 

 

After losing Ryan Lomberg, Kevin Stenlund, Steven Lorentz, Nick Cousins, and Kyle Okposo, the Panthers had limited cap space to rebuild a championship winning bottom line. 

 

Spoiler alert, he did.

 

The signing of 6’3 winger AJ Greer was a low-cost, high-reward deal, with his contract carrying just a $850k AAV over a two year period. 

 

Early into his Panther career Greer has already surpassed my expectations. The 28-year-old has injected much needed juice into the Panthers lineup with his physicality, which appears to be a prerequisite if you’re a consistent depth player on the Panthers, but that wasn’t much of a shock considering his build and career up to this point. 

 

What has surprised me is Greer’s offensive upside. For starters, he is seventh on the team in scoring chances for with 46 and sixth in high danger scoring chances at 5-on-5, according to Natural Stat Trick. To put that in perspective, he’s ahead of Matthew Tkachuk — who is second on the team in scoring — in both categories.

 

Appearing in all 38 games this year, Greer has four goals and nine points (4-5-9) on the season.

 

I wanted to keep these rankings to one player in each category, but it’s hard to speak about top additions and not mention Jesper Boqvist. 

 

The 26-year-old forward certainly had to earn his spot on the roster out of camp, but after cracking the main roster, he continues to earn the trust of the coaching staff.

 

Through 35 games, Boqvist has 13 points (7-6-13) and like Greer, has been given additional responsibilities as an occasional penalty killer.  

 

Both Boqvist and Greer have outplayed their initial fourth-line roles, finding themselves moving up the lineup when the team is looking to switch things up, or wanting to rely on a hot hand — which the two have often been.

 

Honorable Mention – Nate Schmidt

 

Most Improved Player — Mackie Samoskevich

The Panthers certainly have high hopes for their former first-round pick Mackie Samoskevich. 

Last season, Samoskevich made the NHL roster out of training camp in his first year after turning pro. Then 21, Samoskevich played in seven games with the Panthers, while spending most of the season in the AHL with the Charlotte Checkers, where he lead the team in scoring with 54 points (22-32-54).  

 

During his brief stint with the Panthers last season, Samoskevich showed flashes off his offensive skill, but the kid needed some time to learn how to play a 200-foot pro game.

 

After once again making the team this season, the now 22-year-old has shown massive improvements to his game on both sides of the puck. 

 

The NHL game is coming a lot easier to Samoskevich after a full year in the AHL. His situational awareness is at a high level and his play away from the puck look night and day to what it was last year.

 

Offensively, Samoskevich is finally showing why the Panthers took him with their top pick in 2021. 

 

Through 33 games, he’s tallied 7 goals and 12 points (7-5-12), while playing most of his minutes on the Panthers’ bottom six. 

 

Samoskevich would certainly find himself playing more minutes if he was on a non-contending team, and his numbers would likely be a bit higher, but I think that’s a decent trade off when you’re a relied upon player on the defending Stanley Cup champions. 

 

Honorable Mention – Uvis Balinskis

 

Player Looking For More in 2025 — Carter Verhaeghe

Given his track record, specifically come playoff time, I’ll start by saying I am not worried too much about Carter Verhaghe’s decline in offense, but he’s certainly going to be gripping his stick a little harder if the pucks don’t start to find the back of the net. 

 

Verhaeghe scored 34 goals in 76 games last season and 42 the year before. So it’s not alarming to note that he’s sitting on nin goals through 38 games this season, while also being a -20 on the year.

 

His dip in offensive production is noticeable, but it’s not for a lack of trying.

 

The 29-year-old leads the team in boh scoring chances for (80) and high danger chances for (30) at 5-on-5, while his power play numbers for both of those categories are also near the top of the list, according to  Natural Stat Trick. 

 

Florida has plenty of offensive talent to spread across the ice, but they, and Verhaeghe, will want to see those numbers jump up as we hit the second half of the season. 

 

Not So Hidden. Hidden Gem — Sam Bennett

If you watch Panthers hockey, you know how important Sam Bennett is to the identity of the Florida Panthers. 

 

He plays a hard, fast, nasty game and it’s exactly what the Panthers’ game thrives off. 

 

Bennett has been the team’s energizer bunny for the past few seasons and it only elevated when he was reunited with Matthew Tkachuk two years ago in Sunrise.

 

After playing a big role in the Panthers’ Cup win, Bennett stormed out of the gates with the best start to the season in year 10 of his NHL career. 

 

The hot start was enough for Bennett to crack Team Canada’s stacked roster for the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off, where he’ll join teammate Sam Reinhart in representing the Great White North.

 

His production has slowed down over the past few games, largely because he was battling an illness, which he just recently recovered from. Still, his 13 goals and 27 points (13-14-27) through 36 games isn’t anything to slouch over, especially with his style of play.

 

Fan Choice MVP — Sam Reinhart

Look at that, my MVP and Panthers fans’ MVP (according to my Twitter survey) align. 

 

By an overwhelming majority, the loyal fans of South Florida’s team recognized Sam Reinhart’s impact on the ice this season and have voted him as their ‘Fan Choice MVP’.

 

You guys know puck. Happy New Year!