Monday marked the fourth anniversary of the Florida Panthers hiring Bill Zito as their 11th general manager. Prior to joining the Panthers, Zito held positions as senior vice president of hockey operations, associate general manager, and alternate governor with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Zito began his tenure with the Blue Jackets in 2013 after establishing himself as a top player agent and founding the successful ACME World Sports agency.
Before landing in Florida, Zito was considered for general manager roles with several teams, including Buffalo, Carolina, Minnesota, and New Jersey. He had also interviewed with the Arizona Coyotes before being hired by the Panthers. Both Zito and the Panthers are very pleased with how things turned out.
Upon his hiring four years ago, Zito expressed both excitement and humility, acknowledging the hard work ahead. “It’s humbling and very exciting. It’s also daunting,” Zito said in an interview. “There’s going to be a lot of hard work, and I am not afraid of hard work. I know what’s in front of me, and I am filled with excitement and enthusiasm. Last night, I was just exhausted and still woke up at 3 a.m. I couldn’t go back to bed. I had to start writing my ideas down. I suspect that’s going to be my fate for the next few nights.”
Since Zito’s hiring on September 2, 2020, he has transformed the Panthers from a team with potential into a championship contender. The difference between the team that ended the 2019-20 season with a four-game loss to the New York Islanders in the Toronto Covid bubble and the one preparing to defend its Stanley Cup championship in Zito’s fifth season is stark.
When Zito took over, the Panthers faced several key decisions, especially after trading Vincent Trocheck and Nick Bjugstad in the preceding seasons. Zito initially chose to build around Sasha Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Aaron Ekblad. “If you maximize the potential of every player, it’s a pretty good group, right?” Zito said in 2020. “I don’t think everyone clicks at 100 percent all the time, and that’s unrealistic. But, boy, if these guys could just will themselves, prepare themselves as professionals to get there, this is a pretty good group. I’m real optimistic.”
Zito’s first move as GM was trading Mike Matheson and Colton Sceviour to Pittsburgh for Patric Hornqvist. He then made Anton Lundell a first-round draft pick. In his first free agency period, Zito allowed Evgenii Dadonov, Mike Hoffman, Brian Boyle, Erik Haula, and Mark Pysyk to depart, while bringing in Radko Gudas, Carter Verhaeghe, Alex Wennberg, Anthony Duclair, and others.
Looking at the Panthers’ roster from 2020 to now, it would appear they underwent a massive rebuild, but few NHL teams turn over that much of their roster so quickly and still find success. Yet the Panthers did just that.
In 2021, Florida made the playoffs; the following season, they won their first playoff series since 1996 in a President’s Trophy-winning year, only to be swept by the Lightning in the second round. Not content with just a good season, Zito made a coaching change, bringing in Paul Maurice to reshape the team’s play style. Zito also made a bold move by trading for Matthew Tkachuk, sending Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar to Calgary in a blockbuster deal that cemented the Panthers as true contenders.
Along the way, Zito added key players like Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Gus Forsling, and Brandon Montour. The Panthers have since made it to consecutive Stanley Cup Finals, winning the championship for the first time on June 24.
Zito has been a finalist for GM of the Year in three of his four seasons with the Panthers, though he has yet to win the award. Nevertheless, he did get to take the Stanley Cup fishing in the Keys and then to a Brewers game in his hometown—a pretty good consolation.
Reflecting on the victory, Zito said at the draft, less than a week after the Panthers won the Cup by defeating the Edmonton Oilers 2-1 in Game 7 of the Final, “That first night was just surreal. I can’t express how much better it was than I ever could have imagined.”
