The Florida Panthers have made what you might think is an odd free agency day signing: goaltender James Reimer has joined the Cats on a five-year, $17 million deal. The Panthers have certainly not gotten complacent with their recent success, signing Keith Yandle and re-signing Aaron Ekblad to huge deals. But you might wonder why the Panthers would put that money into Reimer when Roberto Luongo is still going strong. And why not re-sign Al Montoya to back him up as he had a decent year at 12-7-3 with a 2.19 GAA?
But in truth, I like this deal for the short and long term. Short term, Panthers want to win now, and to have a starting goalie quality at the back up position is huge, especially if you can get a guy to buy into that. And let’s face it, Roberto Luongo is 36 years old and played 62 games last year. The best way to keep Luongo at a high level is to keep him fresher, and it’s easier to do that if you have a guy like Reimer backing him up. No offense to Montoya, but Reimer has played at a high level longer.
Long term? Reimer can slide in once Luongo decides that enough is enough. The question is: when is that? Luongo’s contract extends to his age 42 season, but his yearly value is cut in half in 2017-18 and keeps going down from there. So you can see a scenario where Luongo either becomes content with a backup role or rides off into an early sunset. And if he does, James Reimer is right there. The wild card in all of this, of course, is next season’s expansion draft when the Panthers have to expose one of these goalies. Depending on what happens this season, perhaps Roberto Luongo could be the first goalie in Las Vegas history. But all in all, I like what the Panthers are thinking.
