Dale Tallon’s reign of error with the Florida Panthers is finally over

The Florida Panthers have finally moved on from Dale Tallon, but his blunders will linger with the team for years. 

After failing to win a playoff round for the 24th year in a row, the Florida Panthers have finally parted ways with general manager and former team president Dale Tallon after a decade with the team, just hours after the Panthers were officially eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The original report came from Andy Strickland of Fox Sports, but the move has not been officially announced by the team yet.

The Panthers were eliminated in four games by the New York Islanders in the Qualifying Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, pushing their drought without a playoff series win to 24 years in a row, by far the longest in the league. Ever since Tallon was hired in 2010 after winning a Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks, the Panthers have made the playoffs only twice (excluding this qualifying round) and lost in the first round both times.

Tallon’s legacy in Florida will be the Sergei Bobrovsky contract signed last offseason, a 7 year contract worth $70M for a 31 year old goalie who posted a .900 save percentage during the regular season. It’s already considered the worst contract in the league, is completely untradeable/buyout proof, and is only going to get worse as the time go on.

Also on Tallon’s resume is losing both Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith in the Vegas expansion draft for nothing, trading Nick Blugstad and Jared McCann to Pittsburgh for nothing, and throwing the entire organization into turmoil far too often.

Tallon’s final big move with the Panthers was trading Vincent Trocheck, a cost controlled second line center, to the Carolina Hurricanes for ten games of Erik Haula, a bottom six center, an ok defensive prospect, and a maybe future NHL player. Now the Panthers have a hole at second line center. Imagine that.

To try and name the rest of Tallon’s gaffes over the last decade would take all day, but they will linger with the team for several years. This move was long overdue for a team in dire need of change.

How do the Panthers move forward from here?

With Tallon gone, the Panthers have a lot of work to do this offseason to both clean up Tallon’s mistakes and eventually get them back to contention. As of right now, there is no report of who could replace Tallon. Whether it’s an internal promotion or an external hire, the new GM is going to have their worse cut out for them.

First and foremost is to root out the culture of losing that has plagued this organization for over two decades. While that’s obviously easier said than done, hiring Joel Quenneville last season was a good start, and now the organization needs to take a look at the roster that’s constructed.

The Panthers have a solid young core of Alexander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Aaron Ekblad, all home grown players. They also have a solid offense to build on after scoring the seventh most goals in the league this season, but with Mike Hoffman and Evgeni Dadonov likely leaving in the offseason, that is likely going to dip without replacements.

The entire defense in Florida needs to reworked from top to bottom after giving up the fourth most goals in the NHL, and there’s really nothing that can be done about the goaltending other than hope and pray that Bobrovsky can bounce back next season.

Most importantly, there needs to be a long-term plan for success that doesn’t just rely on throwing money at free agents in the offseason to try and sneak into the playoffs. It might not be a bad idea to take a step back next season after some inevitable free agent departures and load up on some younger talent with draft picks and prospects for some longer term success.

Regardless of what comes next for the Panthers, the worst possible direction is more of the same. Tallon may be gone, but something significant needs to happen if this team is going to do anything of any kind of importance any time soon.