Florida Panthers: Grading the Anthony Duclair addition which is win-win

Anthony Duclair and the Florida Panthers are a perfect match.

It only took a couple of months but Anthony Duclair’s bold strategy to represent himself in Free Agency paid off after he signed a one-year, $1,700,000 deal with the Florida Panthers on Thursday.

Duclair had to be patient and bide his time before a team took the plunge, but good things come to those who wait and this is a win-win deal for both parties.

After carving out a career-year in the NHL in 2019-20 with the Ottawa Senators, putting up 23 goals and 17 assists for 40 points in 66 regular season games and earning his first trip to the All-Star Game as a result, Duclair rightly wanted to test the open market and go on the hunt for a big payday.

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However, the COVID-19 Pandemic had other ideas and Duclair, like so many of his colleagues, were left waiting by the phone with teams unwilling to spend up to the cap as they might have done in previous years.

Also, while the forward truly broke out last year, it came after a plethora of failed stops throughout the NHL, including with the likes of the New York Rangers, Arizona Coyotes, Chicago Blackhawks and the Columbus Blue Jackets.

As a result, some teams may have felt that Duclair’s exploits in 2019-20 were simply a flash in the pan, a freak event that is unlikely to take place again and a revert back to type is the more likely outcome.

But, at just 25-years-old and on the cusp of hitting his prime years, Duclair saw an opportunity to really bet on himself in Sunrise and earn more admiring glances ahead of the 2021 offseason.

After all, a $1.7 million contract in a place with no state tax and where the sun is always out is a pretty good damn deal for the left winger, while another offensive explosion in 2020-21 would set up a huge payday next offseason when the financial outlook may be a little rosier across the NHL landscape.

Duclair also proved in 2019-20 that he is just beginning to scratch the surface of his talent and offensive abilities, and the secret and sought-after sauce that is confidence seemingly injecting fresh lift into a career that had flown off the race track far too often.

Having shown what he’s capable of while carrying a bad and rebuilding Ottawa Senators team on his back, the onus will now be on Duclair to take that next step, elevate his game further and prove that he’s got what it takes to a consistent offensive threat in the National Hockey League.

While he will never be a forward who excels in the defensive art of the game, the Panthers don’t need that but rather a cold-blooded killer who can both put the puck in the net and help others do the same, while the fact that Duclair’s ATOI surged to a career-high 16:16 in 2019-20 proves that he’s capable of taking on a much bigger role.

As for the Florida Panthers, they needed goalscoring and an offensive punch after losing Mike Hoffman and Evgenii Dadonov in Free Agency.

I wrote here how a reunion with Hoffman would make sense but, after clearly deciding not to head down that particular path again, the Panthers have got a pretty good runner-up prize in Duclair who does tick a lot of boxes for this team.

Boasting speed, creativity and a killer instinct, Duclair should slot straight into the Panthers’ top-six and he will have better line mates than he did in Ottawa.

For instance, Duclair could be put on the top line with Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau to fill the void left by Dadonov, or he could find himself on a line with Alexander Wennberg and maybe high-end stud Owen Tippett.

Either way, Duclair will have more opportunity to reach the 30-goal plateau, particularly on that top line, and he should have more opportunity to showcase his talents on a team that needs one almighty spark in the offensive zone.

If Duclair can also solve a major bugaboo and flaw in his game which has been a lack of consistency – 14 or 61 percent of his 23 goals in 2019-20 came in a red hot 17 game stretch – then he should morph into the legitimate goalscoring machine that the Florida Panthers so crave.

And, if Duclair can carve out a monster season and prove that 2019-20 was just the beginning of a new chapter in his NHL career, then he won’t be a Free Agent for long at all next offseason.

Duclair firing on all cylinders and lighting the lamp with alarming consistency would only work out well for the Panthers too, particularly if they secure a postseason berth, and that is why a one-year deal is a true win-win scenario for both parties.

It provides Anthony Duclair with a golden opportunity to set himself up for a huge payday next year and perhaps a better situation, while this signing has made the Florida Panthers better overnight and their offense certainly carries a bit more of a threat now than it did at the beginning of the week.

Final Grade: B+