South Florida's always-too-easy-to-overlook fourth professional team had a chance to make a summer splash that would have been the talk of the NHL and instantly elevated the franchise's stature league-wide and in its own crowded home market.
Instead, Barry Trotz is the one that got away.
The Florida Panthers should have thought on a grand scale and gone hard after the coach who this month resigned from the Washington Capitals over money just 11 days after raising the Stanley Cup trophy.
It wasn't that sitting Panthers coach Bob Boughner deserves to be fired. He rallied to do OK as a first-year NHL head coach last season, finishing strong and very narrowly missing the playoffs.