3 teams who should make a trade offer for Jonathan Toews

1. Florida Panthers

The Panthers made the playoffs in Joel Quenneville’s first year behind the bench, but the New York Islanders beat them 3-1 in the qualifying round. The likely loss of center Mike Hoffman in free agency, and winger Evgenii Dadonov’s departure in free agency, takes away their third and fourth-highest scorers from last year.

The Panthers fell short in their pursuit of defenseman Nate Schmidt in a trade, but it appears big moves are on the radar. A shift toward adding a notable forward could be coming.

Toews would of course reunite with Quenneville, who led the Blackhawks to Stanley Cups in 2010, 2013 and 2015, in Florida. If Toews pushes behind the scenes for that reunion and maybe has Florida on a narrow list of teams he’d waive his no-move for, perhaps Chicago would retain a big chunk of salary to facilitate the move. The Panthers currently have about $11.5 million in cap space, so ideally they’d send some salary back to Chicago in a deal for Toews.

Florida is automatically in win-now mode with Quenneville as their coach. The roster lacks playoff and Cup-winning experience, which of course Toews has. New general manager Bill Zito may already be diving into how a deal could work.

Let’s assume the Blackhawks retain some of Toews’ salary. Then, this deal would might be a starting point (though it does work on it’s own. Maybe a third team would be involved, or the Panthers add another draft pick.