Panthers’ Bill Zito talks free agency preparation, update on Reinhart, NHL draft

A slew of Florida Panthers players have been living it up over the past week as they’ve celebrated winning the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

President of hockey operations and general manager Bill Zito has been burning the midnight oil as well, but only had one night to soak in the moment and celebrate.

There has been a lot of business to attend to, and not really a lot of time to tackle everything.

“The first night was surreal,” Zito said. “I can’t express how much better it was than I ever could have imagined. And then the last few days have been a pain in the ...”

Over the past five days, Zito has had a lot on his plate. The Panthers have about $19.5 million of cap space to work with this offseason. Zito is trying to hammer out potential contracts for pending free agents — most notably forward Sam Reinhart and defenseman Brandon Montour among 11 unrestricted free agents, plus restricted free agent Anton Lundell. There’s scoping out the market for when free agency begins on Monday. And there’s the NHL Draft, which enters Day 2 on Saturday. The Panthers didn’t have a pick in the first two rounds and will be on the clock for the first time with the 97th overall pick.

Prior to the start of the draft on Friday, Zito spoke with reporters in Las Vegas. Here are the highlights from that interview session.

How have the past few days been?

“Crazy. I made a joke to someone that I felt like a wedding planner, where you’re just trying to make sure whatever it is that happens next is as good as it can be for the players so they can really enjoy it and putting on fires that you hadn’t anticipated even existed. It’s busy. Such a short window to try to get guys signed and and then to prepare for free agency.”

With the quick turnaround, have you been able to get anything done?

“Oh, yeah. All through the playoffs, you work. It was a little bit probably less efficient working there the deeper we went, but we had prepared. And we had the luxury of last year’s experience knowing, ‘Listen, we’re gonna have to stay on this,’ at least on the pro side. And so that part, a lot of that work had been done in advance.”

Where do things stand with Sam Reinhart?

“I won’t say anything other than we really hope to have him back, and we’re trying to keep as many of the guys as we possibly can. I’m optimistic, and we’ll see.”

Do you think you can keep both him and Montour?

“I don’t know. I mean, at the risk of being coy, there’s a way, but I also am appreciative of the fact that guys do well and guys deserve to get paid and guys deserve bigger and better opportunities. We respect it. Hopefully we’re a place that if you’re the person who comes and you move on because you’re getting paid too much, or you have a better [opportunity], well, then maybe someone else will want to come.”

What is the challenging of dealing with having so many unrestricted free agents?

“There’s a lot of, maybe there’s missed opportunities. I don’t know. Like, you can make fun of me later but when you go fishing, it’s like ‘I’m gonna go fish over here. There’s a lot of boats.’ I don’t know, but for the most part, we’ve planned it out in advance, and we just, we’ll do our thing, and what happens happens. We have a real solid core, I think, and I’m hopeful we can keep as many guys that want to be there and keep going.”

How do you plan to balance the cap?

“We’re going to spend to the cap. So I’m gonna spend it all. So it’s like, if you want this and we don’t have it, I can’t manufacture it. So it’s frustrating; it’s harder, perhaps, but it’s really nothing you can do.

Do you have a flow chart or some way of operating as everything begins — like This is Plan A, Plan B and all the way down to Plan Z?

“Yes and no. We have, I would say more of by category maybe, but for sure and literally typed. Mine’s more of a using the outline function in Word. So if we get this guy then ... But all the while you’re talking every [situation]. When we get there, you’ll talk to as many people as you can to know because if [option] B isn’t there, then [option] C moves up.”

No pick in Day 1, but how important is Day 2 of the draft?

“That’s the lifeline, and it’s something that we have to pay attention to. I have such appreciation for our scouting staff, who works their tail off. The last few years, we’ve been gutted and we have some holes, but it’s important.”