Florida Panthers, longtime general manager Dale Tallon part ways
The Florida Panthers and general manager Dale Tallon have mutually agreed to part ways after his team was eliminated from the playoff qualifying round last week.
Tallon, whose contract was up after this season, had been hired as the team’s general manager in 2010 and had been president/GM since 2017.
Under Tallon, the Panthers won division titles in 2011-12 and 2015-16 but failed to make the playoffs in other years. They made the expanded postseason field this season but lost to the New York Islanders in four games.
"For the last decade, Dale raised the team’s profile, attracted key players to South Florida and brought character and class to our franchise,” owner Vincent Viola said in a statement Monday. “When we purchased the Panthers in 2013, we did so with a singular goal — to win a Stanley Cup. We have not seen our efforts come to fruition. We will now begin an organizational search for the next general manager.”
Though Tallon built a solid core with his early first-round picks (Aaron Ekblad, Jonathan Huberdeau, Aleksander Barkov), the team continued its streak of not getting past the first round since 1996.
Tallon went all in this season, hiring three-time Stanley Cup winner Joel Quenneville as coach and signing free agent goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to a seven-year, $70 million contract.
But the two-time Vezina Trophy winner started slowly before getting more comfortable later in the season. He finished with a 3.23 goals-against average as the Panthers ended up with the third-worst team GAA in the league.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Florida Panthers, GM Dale Tallon agree to part ways
