Panthers Have Been Busy

The Panthers have been busy this summer, as they try and lift themselves into a new bracket of competitiveness in the Southeast Division, which holds some pretty good teams. The Panthers have now added Steve Reinprecht up front, Jordan Leopold & Ville Koistinen on the blueline and Scott Clemmensen in net. That should play as good compliments to the good players that the team already has signed on for the coming year. I don't expect any of those four players to break out into their best years ever, but they should keep their numbers consistent with their career averages, which should keep them easy to rank for your fantasy draft.

Tomas Vokoun may be the main benefactor from these moves, as the team in front of him has improved and he'll now get pushed by Clemmensen for that number one job.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Stephen Weiss	Bryan McCabe	Tomas Vokoun
David Booth	Keith Ballard	Scott Clemmensen
Cory Stillman	Jordan Leopold
Nathan Horton	Ville Koistinen
Michael Frolik	Bryan Allen
Steve Reinprecht
Radek Dvorak
Gregory Campbell
Kamil Kreps
Rostislav Olesz
Nick Tarnasky
Wade Belak
Shawn Matthias

The Panthers will have plenty of room to help fill some of their last remaining holes in their line-up, as the 20 players they have signed above only come at a cap hit of $48.6 million. The Panthers are also blessed with some good young talent coming through the ranks as well, which could likely make the jump and keep their cap number really low. I would be looking at Michael Repik, Kendall McArdle and Keaton Ellerby to make an impact in training camp and earn spots. They could also be decent pool rookies for the 2010 season.