Jonathan Marchessault’s game-changing game could end his former team’s best Stanley Cup chance.
Marchessault and Reilly Smith aren’t just two of Vegas’ original underdogs — they represent a connection between the two teams going head-to-head in the finals and a throwback to an earlier era of Florida management.
A Stanley Cup contender is typically a product of more than one hockey era. A team is usually built over time by multiple managers. The Panthers are currently led by Bill Zito, but before that there was the Dale Tallon era that began in 2010 – which laid some foundations not only for the Panthers but also for the Golden Knights.
When ownership passed to Vincent Viola at the end of 2013, the new group took over Tallon as managing director. Soon after, Tallon fired his only assistant general manager and ran a very lean front office. As the team struggled on the ice, two owners of their own began to brace themselves: former West Point hockey player Eric Joyce (who declined to comment on this story) and attorney Steve Werier, both in their early 30s, both of whom had originally been hired for additional behind-the-scenes positions. Eventually, Joyce and Werier were named associate general managers, bringing with them a group of data-driven analysts and scouts that included Cam Lawrence, Josh Weissbock, Rhys Jessop, and Mike Fairman. The group was eventually dubbed the “Computer Boys” to ridicule their actions, but the name stuck with the public.
Ahead of the 2016/17 season, Tallon was detached as general manager to support this new, young group that didn’t mix with the old guard, but was allowed to remain with the club as president. Ownership named former NHL player and AHL coach Tom Rowe as GM alongside the new group, giving the team a more “traditional” leader at a time when players like John Chayka and Kyle Dubas weren’t top clubs.
The analytically inclined front office got to work with the keys. Some deals were made to the dismay of Tallon, who often expressed this in his staff, including the moves by Joyce and Werier to swap Erik Gudbranson for Jared McCann. Florida remained active and continued to work on defense, trading Dmitry Kulikov for Mark Pysyk. The redesigned management also found a way to avoid the atrocity that became Dave Bolland’s contract by sending him to Arizona along with Lawson Crouse in exchange for draft picks.
In addition to being active in the trade market, the Panthers’ front office also made a handful of signings. Some were renewals, including Aaron Ekblad’s eight-year contract capped at $7.5 million, which is still active today. Jonathan Huberdeau and Vincent Trocheck have also been signed. This also applied to Smith, who was taken on before the official change in management. To continue their efforts to bring more stability to the blue line, Jason Demers, a full free agent, was signed to a five-year contract.
Along with some of those more spectacular, lucrative deals came a cheap two-year deal for Marchessault.
“Marchessault was a rare Group 6 UFA, which means he had played so few games by the age of 25 that he became a full free agent early on as part of the CBA,” Werier said. “Although he generally stayed under the radar, he was our number one free agent target.”
At this point, Marchessault had just 47 games in the NHL, mostly with the Lightning in the 2015-16 season. He spent most of his professional playing time up to this point in the AHL. But the Panthers’ front office saw qualities in the tenacious forward that inspired the signing.
“During the free agency interview, I set up a meeting with Marchy and our owners, and we made it clear that we saw him as much more than just a profound newcomer,” Werier said. “On July 1st he was my first call. We offered him a one-way, two-year deal that we knew would beat the competition.”
Marchessault responded with a 30-goal, 51-point season in his first NHL regular role. That was just the beginning of his rise in the NHL; He’s proven almost every year since then that he’s a legitimate top-flight winger. His breakthrough 2.41 points per 60 points scored in the 2016–17 season was surpassed in four of the next five years.
Just not in Florida.
That’s because ownership reverted to Tallon after the season. The Panthers missed the playoffs in 2016-17 as they were burdened by a number of serious injuries, including Huberdeau’s Achilles tendon rupture and Aleksander Barkov’s long-term injury. A streak of bad luck in the latter part of the season ended the year on a bitter note. And Rowe didn’t make things any better; He didn’t bring stability to the front office or behind the bench after taking on Gerard Gallant midseason. He cracked down on the front office representatives put together by the front office owners and publicly angered his own players.
With Tallon back at the helm, the changes began.
“Early on in the offseason, leadership at the time made it clear that they would be protecting four defenders and four forwards (instead of 7F/3D) in the expansion draft and that Marchessault and Smith would be exposed,” Werier said.
Florida chose to protect Barkov, Huberdeau, Trocheck and Nick Bjugstad along with Ekblad, Keith Yandle, Pysyk and Alexander Petrovic as their eight skaters.
“Everyone recognized that this meant Vegas would claim Marchesault, but the leadership, as was their right, thought it was the best plan,” Werier added. “Could the way he was acquired and the changes in management this year have influenced the willingness to expose him at all? Probably. Regardless, it was disappointing that we were able to sign both players and see them play so well for us.”
At the time the extension was drafted, the public perception was that Marchessault was unable to sweeten the deal between Las Vegas and Smith just as his five-year, $25 million extension (signed July 2016) went into effect should. The Golden Knights acquired him for a 2018 fourth-rounder and expansion draft considerations.
If that really was a pure hockey decision, it certainly doesn’t look good, and not just in hindsight. Marchessault had a 30-goal season that put him in the top 25 in the league for a minimum salary of just $750,000. Though he clearly expected a raise after the 2017-18 season, his first at Vegas, Florida could have afforded it. The six-year, $30 million deal he signed after a few months with the Golden Knights was not only inexpensive then, but is still going strong five years later.
This isn’t the kind of player to lose for nothing – even if you push the narrative of doing so to give up another contract and even if you factor in Smith’s “poor” year in the scorers’ chart. While the winger posted the second-worst finish of his career at 1.51 points per 60 in the 2016-17 season, it was a breakaway season – a season that sat between a 25-goal, 50-point season and a career-high of 1 with Vegas . Although Smith didn’t produce as much on the scorer charts, he was still effective at both ends and a top-notch penalty killer.
Marchessault and Smith were exposed because of someone like Bjugstad. He had come off a season with just seven goals and 14 points while hitting a $4.1 million cap (with four years left on the contract). While the goal wasn’t supposed to be the highlight of his game, Florida had it in Smith even as his scoring dwindled in the 2016-17 season.
What could have been the difference? Perhaps Bjugstad was designed by Tallon and then lengthened.
While technically Tallon was general manager at the time of Smith’s transfer, it wasn’t a deal he wrote himself. Joyce and Werier proposed the Smith trade (and the assumption of Marc Savard’s contract, which was based on a long-term injury reserve before it was common practice to transfer those trades) into ownership. Marchessault’s signing was one of the earliest of the Joyce-Werier-led era. So it’s no surprise that these were two of the first players to leave.
That’s why it looks worse than the usual wealth mismanagement. It seemed driven by spite, for it was not the only step taken after Tallon regained power. It was one of many that appeared to be an attempt to disband the team being retooled during his appointment as team president.
The earliest (and easiest) way to start this process was with the expansion draft, where both players were revealed. It started with Marchessault being drafted by Vegas and continued with the Smith trade. That was the first sign that Tallon’s actions were all aimed at trying to put his stamp back on the team, even if it strained the depth of attack the team had built over the past year.
It continued with the attempt to bring Gudbranson back from Vancouver, to which Demers proposed a stop with his modified no-trade clause. That was a clear sign that Tallon was trying to undo last year’s work as he grappled with the initial Gudbranson trade. The defender was a liability on both sides of the ice, but he was a Tallon first-rounder and appreciated his game. Though unsuccessful in getting him back, Demers was traded to Arizona during the offseason in what was an unequal deal for Jamie McGinn.
McCann (along with Bjugstad) was traded to Pittsburgh for Riley Sheahan, Derick Brassard and draft picks. While Marchessault and Smith became the headliners of the Golden Knights’ expansion team, McCann eventually joined in Seattle with a 40-goal season in his sophomore year with the Kraken.
Tallon was eventually released in 2020 after 10 years with the organization.
Following Tallon’s departure, Zito inherited some high-profile core pieces but has provided plenty of turnover in this squad. While there have been groundbreaking trades like Matthew Tkachuk’s, the Panthers have also benefited from market inefficiencies.
Lawrence and Weissbock, two from the last era who stayed a year, helped recommend a Marchessault-like supplement. After the Lightning failed to qualify, the Panthers signed Carter Verhaeghe to a two-year contract that took in just $1 million in leeway. The team was soon rewarded with a stellar season and top-notch forward performance.
Now Verhaeghe meets Marchessault in the Stanley Cup final. They are among the two remaining plays from this period in which the Panthers management competed in this series.
Many of the members of this Florida front office moved on to other NHL jobs. Joyce went to Toronto, Jessop to Carolina. Lawrence and Weissbock joined Columbus after one season at Zito’s Panthers.
There, as Blue Jackets assistant general manager Josh Flynn explained, “they have a valued voice in our process.”
Flynn said that not only has there been less resistance to incorporating analytical staff over the years, but that “their opinions are now treated like a scout’s opinion.”
“I think the more you work with them, the more their opinion is valued because it is validated over time. … If our analysts are pushing men, or are known to be pushing men, and it turns out well, we will remember it and it will add to their credibility,” Flynn explained. If Columbus doesn’t add that player and they are successful elsewhere, that will be noted as well.
That’s a game changer for some in Florida in 2017, and is representative of the league evolving in recent years to include more data-driven thinkers to get a head start.
“Mistakes were made, but that shouldn’t detract from what is really an inspirational story,” said Werier. “We assembled a small group of really talented people who all had their first chances in hockey, and in a short window of time amidst organizational turmoil and in a competitive 31-team league, this group of underdogs managed to identify and win some elites .” Hockey players who would take teams well into the playoffs for years to come.”
And now, Marchessault and Smith, two of the players this group of underdogs have discovered are just one win away from a Stanley Cup championship over their former team.
Data about CapFriendly, Evolving Hockey and HockeyViz.
(Photo by Jonathan Marchessault: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)