Panthers acquire Daniil Tarasov from Blue Jackets for 5th Round Pick
Florida has a new backup goalie and potential Bobrovsky heir apparent.
With Spencer Knight in Chicago and Vitek Vanacek a pending unrestricted free agent, Bill Zito needed to find a new backup goalie behind Sergei Bobrovsky. He found one in Daniil Tarasov, who the Panthers acquired for a 5th round pick from the Blue Jackets (160th overall).
Zito knows Tarasov extremely well, having helped draft him 86th overall in the 2017 Entry Draft. At one point, he projected to be a potential starter with the Blue Jackets, either sharing the crease with or stepping past Elvis Merzlikins, though injuries and the performance of Jet Greaves meant that Tarasov had been passed on the depth chart, and was due a raise on his $1.05M AAV cap hit as a restricted free agent.
He played in 20 games last season, started 19 and had a 7-10-2 record with a 3.54 GAA and save percentage of .881%. According to MoneyPuck, his GSAA was -4.4 last year. He’s played 65 games in his career overall, started 61 and has a record of 19-34-6 with a .898 GAA and a save percentage of .898.
Standing at 6’5’’, he’s a tall goalie with plenty of pedigree that Bill Zito is intimately familiar with, and not only that, he was cheering for the Panthers and Sergei Bobrovsky during the Stanley Cup Final. Now, he’ll be sharing the crease with him.
Not only are both from the same home town in Russia, Novokuznetsk, Bobrovsky grew up idolizing Tarasov’s father too.
“In terms of personal results, it wasn’t what I hoped for,” Tarasov said in an interview with RG. “But there were positives — especially in terms of character. I had to deal with challenges I had never faced before in my career. Everything used to go more or less smoothly. But in the second half of the season, things began to improve. That showed I had made the right adjustments. It helped me understand the kind of character I have and the kind of challenges I can overcome. That will definitely help in the future.”
Tarasov will be Bobrovsky’s battery mate next season, and at only age 26, the Panthers goaltending department of Roberto Luongo, Rob Tallas and others will have a chance to work with him to see if he can potentially reach his potential and beyond.