FanHouse

Who's In: Radek Dvorak, RW/LW (FA-STL); Brett McLean, C/LW (FA-COL); Cory Murphy, D (FA-Europe); Tomas Vokoun, G (Trade-NSH); Richard Zednik, RW/LW (FA-NYI)

Who's Out: Alex Auld, G (FA); Ed Belfour, G (FA-Europe); Martin Gelinas, LW (FA-NSH); Chris Gratton, C/W (FA-TBL); Juraj Kolnik, RW (FA); Alexei Semenov, D (FA-SJS)

What's Changed: Expectations. For years, Florida was a bad team with a very good goalie. Last year, they were a decent team with a pair of mediocre goalies. This year, they should be a better team with a better goalie, so it would stand to reason that the team will be expected to post a fifth-consecutive season of improvement in standings points.

One of the main reasons for optimism in Miami is the arrival of Tomas Vokoun, acquired from Nashville at the Entry Draft in June. Vokoun is a highlight-reel goalie with a 2.55 goals against average and a .913 save percentage over a career that included some lean years in Music City. Since the lockout, Vokes has missed large chunks of time (first with a blod clot in his leg at the end of the '06 season and then with a thumb injury in the middle of last season), but those concerns seem to be behind the 31-year-old netminder, who can be expected to play at least 65 games for the Cats if healthy. He'll be backed up by the well-traveled Craig Anderson.

If Vokoun hasn't yet found a new best friend in Florida, let him play a couple of games with Jay Bouwmeester in front of him -- JayBo is an absolute stud. He was among the Top 25 highest scoring defensemen in the League last season, played the seventh-most minutes amongst skaters (eighth most per game), and was an unbelievable plus-23 for a team that gave up more goals than it scored. Each of those numbers is impressive in its own right, but here's the kicker -- only Nicklas Lidstrom bested Bouwmeester in all three stats, and Liddy won the Norris Trophy as the League's best defenseman. Do you see where I'm going with this? Bouwmeester is now entering his fifth NHL season, and this is the year that his name should start to become a part of any and every Norris Trophy discussions for the next decade or so.

Joining Bouwmeester on the blueline are fellow former first round picks Bryan Allen (taken 4th overall in 1998), Mike Van Ryn (26th in 1998), Ruslan Salei (9th in 1996) and Branislav Mezei (10th in 1999), as well as European import (and poor man's Brian Rafalski) Cory Murphy, former Harvard star Noah Welch and the non-descript Steve Montador. The D-corps beyond Bouwmeester certainly is well-pedigreed and has toughness (Allen, Salei) and some skill (Van Ryn, Murphy), but could use another balanced puck-mover or two to replace some of the alleged body-movers.

Up front, the Panthers are led by Olli Jokinen, who has become as reliable as Old Faithful, registering 38 and 39 goals and 51 and 52 assists over the past two seasons without missing a game in either campaign. In fact, since becoming a full-time NHLer back in 1999, Jokinen has missed only seven games (and only three games in the last five seasons). He battled through some injuries last year and had surgery on his wrist in April, but rest assured that if the Cats' Captain can play, he will.

Along with Jokinen, a pair of youngsters (Nathan Horton and Stephen Weiss) and a veteran (Jozef Stumpel) will be expected to help carry the water on offense. Horton broke the 30-goal mark for the first time in his career in 2006-07, finishing with 31 tallies and an equally-impressive plus-15 rating. Earlier this summer Florida locked up the former third-overall pick (2003) for the next six years, so expect him to get plenty of ice time and to continue to improve.

Like Horton, Weiss signed a six-year extension this summer after posting a career best 21-goal/55-point season. The 24-year-old is smallish (which may help to explain his struggles in the faceoff circle -- last year only Eric Staal won a lower percentage of his draws among centers with as many opportunities as Weiss had) and somewhat injury-prone, but has the leadership and character intangibles that every coach and teammate loves.

The versatile Stumpel had a bit of a career rebirth last year, posting his highest point total (57) since the Clinton Administration and actually setting a new career high in goals (23, which equalled his combined total from the previous two NHL seasons). Stumpel is quite injury-prone, but when he's healthy, he puts up points.

After that quartet, the pickin's get pretty slim, pretty quick. Rostislav Olesz certainly has upside (as does fellow Czech and future Panther Michael Frolik), but if the Panthers are counting on significant contributions from the likes of Ville Peltonen, Richard Zednik and Radek Dvorak, they're likely to be disappointed. Quite simply, the scoring depth at forward just isn't there.

As far as special teams go, Florida's power play finished in the top half of the League last year, and the penalty kill wasn't far behind. Unfortunately for the Cats, however, that same power play got the fewest opportunities in the League and only one team was shorthanded more often than Florida over the course of the season. That's not a good combination.

Who's On The Hook: Jokinen. In a League in which more than half the teams make the playoffs each year, no one in the NHL has played more regular season games without a playoff appearance than the Panthers captain, whose streak currently stands at 641games. While the blame for the team's failure to make the postseason since the ridiculous-in-retrospect trade that brought Jokinen and Roberto Luongo to South Beach in exchange for Oleg Kvasha and Mark Parrish can't be heaped entirely upon the 28-year-old Finn, he's the guy wearing the "C," he'll be the team's all-time leading scorer by Halloween, and he has posted back-to-back career seasons that have been relatively meaningless, as the Cats finished in fourth place in the Division both years. Jokinen can't do it alone, of course, but it's time for him to start earning those big bucks the team shelled out to extend his contract back in March of 2006, and he can start doing that by leading the Panthers to the playoffs.

Where They'll Finish: Everything else being equal, if Luongo had been in Florida last year, he'd likely have been able to account for the seven points by which the Panthers missed the playoffs. Florida's skaters should be marginally better this year, as should the goaltending, but last year's 86-point season was a bit over-achieving. The Panthers might match that this season, but won't better it, and if the injury bug comes back to bite Vokoun, Stumpel and/or Weiss... look out below.

Blogs To Watch: Panthers Daily Puck, On Frozen Pond, Southeast Shootout

Gratuitous YouTube Embed: As tempted as I was to use this video of the Panthers Ice Dancers calendar shoot, I'll go with this highlight reel of the most exciting player to ever lace 'em up for the home team in Miami, Johan Garpenlov Pavel Bure: