Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito took big swings last summer.
It resulted in a trip to the Stanley Cup Final, but he came up short Wednesday night coming in third place for the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award.
Announced midway through the first round of the NHL Draft, Dallas Stars’ Jim Nill took home the award with 91 points to Zito’s 46. Boston Bruins’ Don Sweeney finished in second with 83 points.
Voting was conducted at the end of the second round of the playoffs, and it is Zito’s second time in the last three seasons finishing in third place. A Panthers GM has yet to win the award since its creation in 2010.
“I know that the GM sits in the chair and what have you, but I don’t go out and scout all those players,” Zito said last week when asked about the possibility of winning the award. “Our staff is outstanding.”
Zito shocked the hockey world last June when he fired interim head coach Andrew Brunette and replaced him with Paul Maurice. Brunette had a 51-18-6 record with the Panthers en route to the President’s Trophy, was a Jack Adams Award finalist and led the Panthers to their first playoff series win since 1996.
Then, he traded franchise cornerstone Jonathan Huberdeau, a first-round pick and more to Calgary for Matthew Tkachuk in an effort to build a grittier team to pair with Maurice.
Through January, it looked like the gutsy moves weren’t paying off. The Panthers were on the outside of the playoff picture one year after producing the best regular-season record in the league. It took a Pittsburgh Penguins collapse in the last week of the season even for the Panthers to make the playoffs.
But then they made a surprising run all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, overcoming a 3-1 series deficit against top-seed Boston and knocking out Toronto and Carolina.
Other impactful free-agent signings made by Zito in the last year include Nick Cousins, Alex Lyon and Eric and Marc Staal.
