Bobby Bevilacqua

Brian Campbell with the Panthers. Photo courtesy of Steve Mitchell/US PRESSWIRE.

Just three days ago, the Florida Panthers announced that they had agreed to a one year deal with 24 year old defenseman Erik Gudbranson. On the surface, it didn’t seem like a big deal at all.

But signing Gudbranson means that the Panthers now have seven defensemen under contract (Ekblad, Gudbranson, Kampfer, Kindl, Kulikov, Matheson and Petrovic). The team is fully embracing the youth movement, going with a roster that is full of newer and younger players, and they’re keeping a select few veterans around.

One of the vets that now seems like a lock to leave Sunrise, Florida is defenseman Brian Campbell. “Soupy” has been one of the offensive leaders from the blue line in his five seasons with the Panthers, scoring 27 points or more in each season, and recording a career high 53 points (4-49-53) in the 2011-12 season. This past year Campbell scored six goals and 31 points in 82 games. Read the rest of this entry →