In a letter to the fans Friday, Cliff Viner and Stu Siegel, the Panthers' managing partners, all but admitted giving up on this season and commencing a fire sale to build for the future.
"GM Randy Sexton has begun the process of reshaping this team in order to achieve our goals and objectives," Viner and Siegel wrote on the Panthers' Web site. "This is a multi-step process, beginning now, ahead of the trading deadline, and continuing through the draft, free agency and training camp — so we ask that you assess our success only once this process has run its course."
Should Florida miss out on the playoffs this season, it would mark the ninth year in a row the Panthers are sitting at home in April. But with Florida essentially sealing its 2010 fate, the Panthers can help contenders around the NHL.
While it's unclear which Panthers will be swapping jerseys before the March 3 trade deadline, it seems unlikely many of their veterans will be protected.
"Clearly, we are not satisfied with some of the players on this team that do not possess the characteristics we need to be successful," Viner and Siegel wrote.
It would seem 26-year-old alternate captain and leading scorer Stephen Weiss looks safe, as do a couple of younger prospects who are getting their shot with the big club, but that could be about it. Dominic Moore has already been shown the door, and if Sexton and the rest of the Panthers' decision-makers decide to go ahead with the fire sale, expect names like Cory Stillman, Radek Dvorak and maybe even Tomas Vokoun, among others, to be booking one-way tickets out of South Florida.
