When the injury to John Tavares came, I honestly feared the absolute worst. It was one of the most gruesome headshots I have ever seen a player take in the NHL, and I'm old enough to remember Paul Kariya getting cross-checked in the face by Gary Suter.

That is why this clip of Tavares skating is such good news:

John Tavares is back on the ice at Scotiabank Arena. pic.twitter.com/yB2Lauyn82

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) May 27, 2021

Who knows how long it'll be before he's game-ready but just as a fan of hockey, that isn't the important part right now. That he's feeling good enough to skate so soon after what looked like a potential career-ending injury brings a smile. All the best to Tavares as he continues his recovery.

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Both Ryan Reaves and Peyton Krebs have hit the COVID list for Vegas. Game 7 comes tonight. I hope both players are healthy and safe, and this couldn't be worse timing for them and Minnesota.

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I have been thinking about the Seattle expansion draft and some anchor contracts that could be on the move. Now, teams getting rid of these contracts may have to incentivize the Kraken a bit to take them, but I thought it'd be worth pointing out a couple high-priced players on cap-strapped teams that may be on the move, thus allowing their teams some flexibility. Cap numbers from Cap Friendly.

Ryan Johansen and Matt Duchene

It seems likely the Preds protect Josi-Ellis-Ekholm-Fabbro. That means they can protect four forwards, and after Forsberg and Arvidsson, it seems unlikely they protect both Johansen and Duchene. It seems as if at least one, if not both, will be exposed to Seattle.

Remember that the Kraken do have a cap floor to hit. They can't just draft 31 players making $1M a season, so while they might want to grab a Tanner Jeannot or Luke Kunin, they may need Johansen's cap hit for the next 2-3 years. After that they can buy him out or just keep him around for depth for a season.

I still believe both players can be good contributors but were hamstrung by a bad coach in John Hynes. In a new, progressive hockey environment maybe they can find the second wind on their respective careers. All this is provided one of them goes, and maybe Seattle finds their large-salary players elsewhere. Nashville should be doing all they can to get rid of one of them, though.

Anton Khudobin

Not that he has a massive cap hit, but we're in a flat-cap era, and every dollar counts in such situations. Khudobin being selected by Seattle would free up over $3.3M a season for the next three years and would give them over $20M in cap space for this summer. That is important for a couple reasons.

First, the team has some serious RFA duty this summer. Miro Heiskanen should probably get a monster deal, while Jason Dickinson and Joel Kiviranta are in need of RFA deals. The latter two are nearing UFA status, though, so any long-term extension will mean bigger cap hits. If they can get all three of those guys under contract for less than $12M, that leaves them with a lot of cap space to work with.

The second reason this is important is that this team has one more kick at the can with this core. Joe Pavelski, John Klingberg, and Alex Radulov all have one year left on their deals. The nice thing is the team has guys like Hintz and Gurianov showing out, but those are still massive holes to fill. Dallas will have enough cap space this summer, with Khudobin gone, to make one big splash in free agency to help put them over the top in this final year with this particular core.

Or maybe they choose to not spend to the cap. We will probably see a lot of that.

I will talk more about some other players in future Ramblings. We have a lot of time to kill until July.

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Montreal extended the series with a 4-3 win over Toronto, giving us a Game 6 on Saturday. It will be one with fans, the first such game in Canada in well over a year.

The Habs were a bit fortunate here, as they blew a three-goal lead to get to overtime. Alex Galchenyuk threw a blind pass to the middle, though, and a 2-on-0 with Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki produced a Suzuki OT winner. Joel Armia had a pair of goals to get the Habs going in the first period but Jake Muzzin had a pair of his own to get us to even in the third.

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With the Florida Panthers eliminated, I thought it would be the right opportunity to review their season.

We need to remember that heading into the season, this wasn't a team with expectations. Our preseason panel had either Tampa Bay or Carolina as division champions, ESPN had Florida outside the top-20 teams, as did Sportsnet. Florida started the season as greater than +4000 favourites to win the Cup, meaning longer than 40-1; for reference, the Islanders were around +2500 to start the year, and they were 10^th-15^th by ESPN and Sportsnet rankings before the year. In other words, Florida was a longshot to win the Cup, and not favoured to even make playoffs. And yet, they were truly a top-10 team in the league this year.

In that sense, this year has to be seen as a success. There had been many years of struggles here, and now it finally seems their core is in the place they need to be. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the impact of Joel Quenneville, who seems to have them playing to their strengths.

Florida is in a good spot right now. The trade for Sam Bennett has filled the second-line centre role left vacant since the trade of Vincent Trocheck. They don't have any big vacancies to fill via RFA/UFA this year, with Bennett, Duclair, and Montour being the big names. The team has $10M in cap space so it shouldn't be a problem to bring back at least two of them.

The team will also get back Aaron Ekblad. He and Mackenzie Weegar are a truly top-end top defence pair, and though Weegar played extremely well post-injury, it's hard for a team to reach their true potential with such a big injury. It is worth noting that the team still played exceptionally well without Ekblad, but surely they are a better team with him than without.

I am going to address to areas of issue. First is the blue line.

Honestly, as long as Weegar-Ekblad are a great top pair, they have enough to get by. It is a matter of rounding out the blue line, and the problem are the anchor contracts. Both Keith Yandle and Anton Stralman have at least a year left and combine for nearly $12M. That is a lot against the cap for what are basically two bottom-pair guys now.

They should really do what they can do bring back Gustav Forsling. He had a great year for them by offensive and defensive impacts, via Evolving Hockey:

Forsling is a guy who had a lot of promise early on as a puck-mover but couldn't quite put it all together. It seems he did in Florida, and they can probably keep him around for cheap. Cheap second-pair guys don't come around often.

The problem is the rookies. Owen Tippett became a regular contributor, but none of Grigori Denisenko, Aleksi Heponiemi, and Chase Priskie joined him. Teams need cheap, effective players and those tend to be guys on ELCs. If the team wants to be able to absorb another year of bad contracts like Yandle, Stralman, and Bobrovsky, they need a bunch of cheap contracts. In other words, the team's ability to contend again next year might come down to their progression. We will see.

Florida really isn't far off, here. They have two great scoring lines, a competent third line, a great top defence pair, and Spencer Knight looks every bit the goaltender of the future they hope he can be. That is more than what most teams have to work with. They need to figure out their bottom-6 and second defence pair. It might not seem like much, but when looking at teams like Vegas, Colorado, and Tampa Bay, they all have what Florida has, and more. That "and more" is the difference between being a playoff team and being a contender. Florida is close to the latter, but this offseason tells us a lot about their future.

The last wrinkle here is the Panthers are a year away from a monster Barkov contract extension. They probably can't commit much in the way of term for most players coming in. That is fine, though. The Panthers don't need to go out and sign a Taylor Hall or a David Krejci. Again, they just need to nibble around the edges and move forward with Spencer Knight in goal, and they're all set to be a contender. It will be an interesting summer.

Whatever happens here, this should still be a team loaded with fantasy greatness. The two big questions are whether Aaron Ekblad will return to top PP status and whether Spencer Knight turns into an immediate top-12 fantasy goalie. We have lots of time to figure this out before drafts in September.