Panthers bid adieu to Skrastins, defense now at AHL standards; Links-of-Wonder

A day straight out of the Wayne Huzienga school of sports team ownership and management.

They had opportunity and it was squandered, Randy who?

Remember back when our defense was the strength of this team? Those were the days… like 2 months ago.

Pack it in. Call it a “re-building” year, give away whatever tickets you can, and start scouting the junior major leagues in Canada, we’re a top 3 pick next summer.

And I’m trying to be optimistic.

Unfortunately my optimism was overcome, been a season ticket holder since year 2, they’ve been rebuilding for so long I forgot what success is like.

Going to games is a 300 mile round-trip proposition for me that was always sustained by the hope they’d improve, make the right moves and go forward. I saw a fleeting glimmer of hope last season, and I hoped that they’d make the right moves and build a stronger and more viable team.

Instead they’ve weakened the team, used bad propaganda and marketing to try and cover the holes. Just got an email that tickets may be dropping in price and they’d be making certain changes to the season ticket holder benefits – sounds like they are now trying to combat their bad moves with gifts and rebates.

a lot of negativity flying around the Panthers right now, and although last night I would have felt differently, i don’t know that i can say the same today. thinking it over as i went to bad last night, we can’t fault Sexton for the moves he DID make (except signing Koistisnetananana, guess we wanted a Finland connection) but rather those that he didn’t. however, what a rapid turn around we’ve had this week. for a team that in June was CRYING AND SCREAMING for offense, we now have no defense to speak of. forget the offense, even with a tanguay or gaborik or hossa or cammalieri or ANYONE, the defense ain’t carrying the team like it did last year. so, today we stand as a team DESPERATELY needing defnseman and DESPERATELY needing offense. definitely a step backwards. this is upsetting because its apparently clear that our offensive firepower is good enough (we’re all missing that….) but we have no one to keep the puck off the opposing team’s sticks. what good is scoring 4 a game if you’re giving up 6? and let’s be honest, we ain’t scoring 4 a game.

so, Randy, good job on getting the players in that you did bring. but what about all of those that we are lacking? there’s plenty of fire power left out there for the taking. losing Skrastins will hurt a lot more than i think most people realize, he never hesitated throwing himself in front of a puck on its way to the net.

i just hope this Free Agency period isn’t over for our team. who knows…maybe they’ll throw us a curveball and sign a star that we can rally around. otherwise, it will be a loooooong season in Sunrise, and an even longer drought. if only there was a way for this ownership/management team to see what we see, or even care about how we feel about the product on ice.

also, everyone in the Southeast got beter over the last two days except our panthers. Antropov to Atlanta spells bad news for us in my mind…

sigh.

Still a lot of guys out there waiting for phones to ring. And there’s no “deadline” to sign them. Remember, Sexton said signing Leopold was “remote” just yesterday. That sounded pretty definitive. Now he’s a Panther for next season.

May very well be that no further moves will be made, but I’m solidly convinced that this regime will not tip their hand as to what’s really going on behind the scenes simply to appease the masses (or, um, us).

Might be weeks.