Up front, the Panthers have Bennett (eight more seasons), Marchand (six), Aleksander Barkov (five), Anton Lundell (five), Sam Reinhart (seven), Matthew Tkachuk (five) and Carter Verhaeghe (eight). On defense, they have Ekblad (eight), Gustav Forsling (seven) and Seth Jones (five).

The Panthers brought the star trio of Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad and Brad Marchand back with new contracts, keeping the core of the Stanley Cup champions together.

Sam Bennett could have gone to free agency and picked his landing spot, plus probably could have signed for much more money than the Florida Panthers were able to offer.