“We’re going to spend to the cap.” That was the promise the Florida Panthers GM Bill Zito had made on The Pat McAfee Show last month when he was asked about how he would retain ‘The Big Three’—Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand, and Aaron Ekblad. However, despite his public show of confidence, it seemed unlikely that he would be able to fit all three into the $19 million that the Panthers had in cap space.

And so rumors raged on. Both Brad Marchand and Sam Bennett were linked to the Toronto Maple Leafs for the longest time. In fact, The Athletic‘s Pierre LeBrun went so far as to claim that even the Boston Bruins were readying themselves to talk to Marchand, just months after letting him go. And even when both the Conn Smythe winner and his 37-year-old teammate had made it abundantly clear that they had no intention of leaving Miami, Aaron Ekblad’s situation remained uncertain, with Daily Faceoff‘s Jeff Marek pinning him as a potential Utah Mammoth candidate. Fortunately for the Panthers, it all worked out. But how did Zito manage to keep his promise?

“I didn’t,” was Zito’s answer when he was asked the question during a press conference on July 1. “It was those guys [Marchand, Bennett, and Ekblad]. And there’s no gray area whatsoever,” he added. Indeed, had he hit the open market, Bennett would perhaps have fetched far better offers than the $8 million AAV contract he signed with the Panthers. But then again, it’s not a bad deal at all if you throw in a potential Stanley Cup three-peat. That being said, was Zito really confident that this would be the case a couple of weeks ago? “Yeah. Because I have the privilege of being around it all the time,” he declared.

He continued, “I don’t want to spoil the Hollywood part of it. But I believe in all of them. If you’re around it all the time, you feel it, and you know that everybody is a special group of people. It’s a special environment, and these three guys in particular understand, value, and appreciate the opportunity.” Besides Marchand and Bennett, Ekblad, too, had made no secret about his wish to continue calling the Amerant Bank Arena his home.

“Everyone knows where I stand. Listen, this team   … I live and breathe for the Florida Panthers. I bleed for the Florida Panthers. Have given my body and everything to this team. I want to keep doing it forever. As long as they let me come to the rink,” Ekblad had said even before he became a two-time Stanley Cup champion. Like Bennett, the D-man put pen to paper on an 8-year contract, while Marchand signed one that will keep him in Miami for another 6 years and will pay him $5.25 million annually. 

Together, these three can make the Panthers the first team in NHL history to pull off a three-peat in the salary cap era (from 2005-06). And even if they can’t, they’ll still have more than enough time to join the Pittsburgh Penguins (2009, 2016, and 2017) and the Chicago Blackhawks (2010, 2013, and 2015) as the only teams to win the Cup thrice in the cap era.

However, while re-signing Marchand, Bennett, and Zito was a masterclass in cap management, it did come at a cost. 

Bill Zito won some. Bill Zito lost some. 

Bill Zito won in keeping Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand, and Aaron Ekblad before they hit free agency, but lost in keeping other star players on the roster who helped the team win the Cup. First up, the roster lost Nico Sturm then they also lost Nate Schmidt. Sturm reunited with his former team, the Minnesota Wild, while Nate Schmidt signed a three-year, $10.5 million deal with the Mammoth. 

Nate Schmidt had played with the Washington Capitals, Vegas Golden Knights, Vancouver Canucks, and Winnipeg Jets before joining the Panthers in the 2024-25 season. He spent one year with the Panthers and became a Stanley Cup champion after signing a one-year, $800,000 deal.  

In Nico Sturm’s case, he made his NHL debut for the Wild in 2019 before moving to the Colorado Avalanche, where he won his first Stanley Cup in 2022. After his stint with the Avalanche, he also played with the San Jose Sharks. The German star will now play his 5th NHL year after having his name engraved on two cups.