It’s been quite the week for Matthew Tkachuk. In addition to getting the cover of EA Sports NHL 26 (brother Brady and pops Keith join him on the cover of the Deluxe Edition), Florida’s heart and soul forward ranked seventh while teammate Sam Reinhart ranked eighth on NHL Network’s Top 20 Wings Right Now countdown, highlighting the National Hockey League’s top-performing wingers. Tkachuk, a two-time Stanley Cup champion and two-time NHL All-Star, finished one spot ahead of Reinhart and one spot behind William Nylander of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
NHL Network’s Top 20 Wings Right Now, 1-20:
- Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning
- David Pastrnak, Boston Bruins
- Kirill Kaprizov, Minnesota Wild
- Mikko Rantanen, Dallas Stars
- Mitch Marner, Vegas Golden Knights
- William Nylander, Toronto Maple Leafs
- Matthew Tkachuk, Florida Panthers
- Sam Reinhart, Florida Panthers
- Kyle Connor, Winnipeg Jets
- Artemi Panarin, New York Rangers
- Jake Guentzel, Tampa Bay Lightning
- Jesper Bratt, New Jersey Devils
- Brandon Hagel, Tampa Bay Lightning
- Brady Tkachuk, Ottawa Senators
- Clayton Keller, Utah Mammoth
- Jason Robertson, Dallas Stars
- Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals
- Filip Forsberg, Nashville Predators
- Matt Boldy, Minnesota Wild
- Adrian Kempe, Los Angeles Kings
The Panthers were ranked fourth in The Athletic’s NHL contract efficiency rankings 2025 ($)
Here’s what Dom Luszczyszyn had to say about the Cats:
4. Florida Panthers
Last Season: 1st
No one plays the cap efficiency game better than Florida and it can be argued that’s most of the reason the Panthers are back-to-back champions. That was especially clear over their last Cup run where the team won via incredible depth only made possible by their previous commitment to making good deals.
That starts at the very top with four of the absolute best deals in hockey for Sam Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Gustav Forsling. The trio of forwards could easily command a deal somewhere between Mitch Marner and Leon Draisaitl and instead are all making $10 million or less. Gustav Forsling is a proven No. 1 defenseman making a pittance at just $5.75 million. Add deals for Aaron Ekblad and Anton Lundell to that mix and the Panthers are saving a ton of money on one of the league’s best cores for the next five seasons.
So why don’t the Panthers rank higher? It’s mostly because they’ve entered another realm which is all about maintenance with a goal of bringing the entire championship squad back. All that money saved on the core went directly towards making sure the services of Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand could be retained. Given the team’s win-now position, it was a necessary risk to run it back knowing the next 2-3 years are the most pivotal.
Neither Bennett nor Marchand took a discount and at some point it’s likely the Panthers will pay the price for it. There’s no way Marchand is playing until he’s 43, especially not at a $5.3 million level. It’s unlikely Bennett ages well either considering the kind of game he plays. But given their playoff acumen as two of the dawgiest dawgs that ever dawgged, giving both the bag was a necessary risk.
Someday those two deals might look bad, while the rest don’t shimmer quite as brightly — and that’s part of the disconnect. This exercise considers what Florida’s cap sheet might look like near the end of all these deals just as much as it considers what they look like now. The relative age of everyone compared to Carolina, for example, is part of the reason the Panthers aren’t No.1. Essentially, it’s balancing the fact that no team has better cap efficiency than Florida for the 2025-26 season with the likelihood that things won’t look this peachy in 2031.
All that matters is Florida has put itself in a fantastic position to win next season and beyond with its incredible cap efficiency. Flags fly forever and the Panthers have a real chance to fly another one or two. So who cares what the Marchand deal looks like five years from now?
NHL signings
The Vancouver Canucks inked Vitali Kravtsov to a one-year, two-way deal with a cap hit of $775K, bringing the 25-year-old Russian forward back to the NHL. Kravtsov was the ninth overall pick in the 2019 draft. He played 48 games for the New York Rangers and 16 games for the Canucks before returning to Traktor Chelyabinsk, where he has toiled the last two seasons. In 2024-25, Kravtsov exploded for 27 goals, 31 assists and 58 points – all KHL career-highs.
William Villeneuve signed a one-year, two-way contract worth $775K to remain a part of the Maple Leafs organization. The 23-year-old spent the entirety of the 2024-25 season in the AHL with the Toronto Marlies. He appeared in 55 games and was the team’s top-scoring defenseman with 40 points (4G/36A). Villeneuve was chosen in the fourth round (122nd overall) of the 2020 draft.