NHL teams accuse Panthers of tanking the season on purpose

Earlier today Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice announced that veteran forward Brad Marchand may be out of action for the rest of the season.

And although the Panthers have not officially been eliminated from playoff contention, they are 11 points back of the Boston Bruins for the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference and it seems extremely unlikely that they will make it in.

There are also reports that Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart are also not 100% and may be put on the shelf to rest up, as well.

Of course, captain Sasha Barkov has missed the entire season and star forward Matthew Tkachuk has missed most of the season with injury also.

All of these injuries and ailments to very important players is leading to some speculation league-wide.

NHL insider Elliotte Friedman reports today that NHL teams believe that the Panthers may be trying to purposefully tank the season and will nose-dive the remaining games on the schedule in order to receive a higher draft pick.

Now, of course players won't be throwing games on purpose but Friedman believes that the team's coaching and management staff will be pulling players from the lineup, players like Marchand, Reinhart and Bennett, for "load management" purposes. In turn, the team will ice a weaker roster and will slide in the standings.

From Friedman on today's 32 Thoughts podcast:

“There are teams out there that think Panthers are gonna try to nose dive to finish in the bottom 10..one team said to me we might see some load management here...I'm gonna be curious to watch it.”

The Panthers are already a pretty unpopular group league-wide. If these allegations of tanking on purpose have any validity to them, I can't see their reputation improving.

Dirty pool from the defending champs, if true...