The latest on a Huberdeau extension, Giroux’s future and more on the Panthers’ forwards

The Florida Panthers answered their biggest, most urgent question of the offseason last Wednesday when they hired Paul Maurice as their new coach.

Now, their busiest stretch of the offseason is just about here.

The 2022 NHL Entry Draft is next week. Free agency begins the week after. The Panthers have less than $4 million in cap space to work with, no picks in the first two rounds of the Draft, a pair of All-Star wingers with unsettled futures and now fellow winger Anthony Duclair could miss a huge chunk of next year after a recent injury. Things are about to get complicated for general manager Bill Zito as he tries to balance Florida’s present as one of the best teams in the league against a longer view to remain a Stanley Cup contender for years to come with its still-young, mostly contract-controlled core of stars.

Although the Panthers won’t pick on Day 1 of the NHL Entry Draft next week, it will mark the real start of Zito’s impending retool of the roster.

Latest on Jonathan Huberdeau extension

An extension for All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau is among the most pressing concerns for Florida this summer.

Even though he won’t be a free agent until next year, Huberdeau rewrote the Panthers’ — and some of the NHL’s — record book this season when he dished out 85 assists and racked up 115 points to make the NHL All-Star team for the second straight year. A year after Florida gave an extension to star center Aleksander Barkov in the summer before the final season of his deal, Zito last month said the Panthers will “address those one-year-out guys in the same fashion as Sasha.”

Star defenseman MacKenzie Weegar falls in the same category.

Conversations should pick up next week when the NHL world descends upon Montreal for the NHL Draft. So far, talks have been minimal because Florida knows its moving pieces will affect what sort of contract it can offer Huberdeau and Weegar.

Right now, the Panthers have $27.9 million in projected cap space available for the 2023-24 NHL season, but need to replace four forwards and a defenseman from its final-game roster this offseason, and will inevitably hand out — or trade for — some multiyear deals to do so.

Could Giroux return to Panthers?

Ideally, Claude Giroux will receive one of those contracts. Florida gave up a first-round pick to acquire the versatile All-Star forward ahead of the trade deadline this year, and both parties have said they hope a reunion will be possible.

Last month, Giroux said he does picture himself back with the Panthers next year and The Sports Network reported June 8 his priority is returning to Florida.

At the same time, the Panthers currently don’t have the ability to offer Giroux much for next season and the 34-year-old Canadian is hoping for a long-term deal — with a contender — to give his two young children some stability.

After next season, Florida has plenty of cap space to give Giroux the sort of money he’s worth, so there are two options for him to stay with the Panthers: He can either take a discounted one-year deal for the 2022-23 NHL season and trust Florida will give him a multiyear contract a year from now or the Panthers will have to clear out some more short-term cap room.

Florida is still not ruling out the possibility Giroux could take a discount — the seven-time All-Star stayed down in the area for several weeks after the season ended — but the Panthers also expect to be very proactive in the next few weeks, whether it’s something big like trying to trade star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky or a series of smaller moves to create more flexibility in building the roster for next season.

Duclair injury changes Panthers’ outlook

Although it benched Duclair for its final game of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs, Florida always expected the 26-year-old Canadian to be a major part of the equation for next year, even if it wound up as being a valuable chip in any potential offseason wheeling and dealing.

An offseason injury, however, means Duclair will potentially require surgery on his Achilles tendon, The Athletic reported. The Panthers are now down a 30-goal scorer and the potential savings of putting Duclair on long-term injured reserve aren’t really substantial, as Duclair is owed only $3 million for next year, making him just the 11th highest paid player under contract.

There are some potential low-cost replacements for Florida — center Eetu Luostarinen is a restricted free agent, so he should be back on a team-friendly deal; rookie forwards Aleksi Heponiemi and Grigori Denisenko could finally get full-time shots in the NHL; and 42-year-old forward Joe Thornton, who played last year for just $750,000, could always decide to come back for another season — but the Panthers have too grand of aspirations to just fill out the end of the roster low-cost replacements, especially after depth was such a strength this year.

An easy starting point for this retool would be to resign Luostarinen, put Duclair on long-term IR, and trust the combination of rookies and Thornton to fill the Duclair-Thornton minutes in the regular season. From there, Florida would have about $6 million in cap space to try to replace Giroux, fellow wingers Mason Marchment and Noel Acciari, and defenseman Ben Chiarot, with both Bobrovsky and right wing Patric Hornqvist out there as potential casualties of cap-clearing trades.