With defenseman group depleted, MacKenzie Weegar ‘did everything and more’ for Panthers
When the short-handed Florida Panthers took the ice on Thursday against the Los Angeles Kings, MacKenzie Weegar knew he probably was going to be on the ice more than he wasn’t.
It’s a situation he takes pride in, even if the reason he had to step up was one neither he nor the team would have preferred to have happened.
“It’s always fun taking on extra responsibility,” Weegar said in a mid-game interview on Bally Sports Florida. “It means the team and the coaching staff has some trust and some faith in you.”
A COVID-19 outbreak inside the organization had sidelined seven players, and the Panthers’ defenseman group was particularly hit hard.
Weegar carried the bulk of the load as a result.
He logged a career-high 31:32 of ice time, including 6:55 of the Panthers’ eight minutes on the power play, during the 4-1 loss.
“We were relying on him a lot. I think we have all year, but [Thursday night], even more than normal,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said of Weegar, who leads the team in blocked shots (64), is second in average time on ice (23:55) and hits (77), and tied for third in assists (15) a little more than a third of the way through his fifth full NHL season. “He competed, he did a great job on the power play. He did everything and more that we asked from him.”
The Panthers needed to ask a lot of him, considering the defenseman group they had to dress for the game.
The key characters missing because of the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols:
▪ Aaron Ekblad, Weegar’s partner as Florida’s top defensive pairing and the primary defenseman the Panthers use on the power play.
▪ Radko Gudas, a 10-season NHL veteran and the team’s leader in hits (117).
▪ Brandon Montour, who ran the second power-play unit.
Add in Gustav Forsling being out with a non-COVID illness, and Florida’s experience level among its blue-liners was thin on Thursday.
The four defensemen who joined Weegar in the lineup: Olli Juolevi, Lucas Carlsson, Chase Priskie and Matt Kiersted.
Carlsson was the most veteran of that quartet, playing in his 13th game of the season and 31st of his career. Juolevi was next, playing in just his fourth game of the season after dealing with an assortment of injuries.
Priskie and Kiersted were called up hours before the game from the Charlotte Checkers, the Panthers’ American Hockey League affiliate, and were playing their third game in as many nights.
And it was the youngsters who gave Florida valuable minutes.
Priskie was second among Florida skaters in ice time (25:29). Kiersted scored the team’s only goal.
“No matter what happens this game,” Weegar said during the Bally Sports Florida interview, “it’s been a lot of fun playing with those young kids.”
The young kids did what they could to fill in the missing time and lessen the burden when they could.
And they gained another level of appreciation for Weegar in the process.
“Here was an iron man last night,” Priskie said Friday. “He was he was steadfast all night. So I mean, just being around him, seeing how he plays the game, and then during some of the intermissions or the TV timeouts just being able to chat with him and and kind of get a view of what he sees and what I can be doing better and kind of the positions I put myself in [was helpful]. He is extremely supportive and helped us out and just tried to get us all on the same page on such short notice.”
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