Panthers winger Anthony Duclair found a home — and saved his career — in South Florida
It might have been the biggest moment of the Florida Panthers’ 3-2 overtime win against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday and Anthony Duclair was right in the middle of it, stationed right in a new home he has found on the power play.
At the halfway mark of the third period, Duclair set up around the right faceoff circle and the Panthers kept trying to get him the puck. Cross-ice passes from Jonathan Huberdeau let him load up one-timers and long cycling passing sequence tried to set him up in the slot. Finally, Sam Reinhart made it happen, drawing John Gibson’s attention as he set up on the right doorstep, then firing a pass to Duclair in the circle. The winger looked at an empty net and put home the game-tying goal — his second of the game. For the first time in his career, he was a 30-goal scorer and, for a brief moment, he celebrated alone with an emphatic fist pump in the corner of FLA Live Arena.
It had been a long time coming for the 26-year-old Canadian.
“For him, I’m really happy,” All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau said Tuesday.
Since the New York Rangers selected him in the third round of the 2013 NHL Entry Draft, Duclair has played for six franchises, been traded three times and had to settle for one-year deals worth less than $2 million both times he hit the free agent market. He was selected for the 2020 NHL All-Star Game when he was playing for the Ottawa Senators and then the Senators declined to even make him a qualifying offer. His career ran into such dire straits in 2020, Duclair decided to fire his agent and represent himself.
It was his decision alone to come to Florida after his final season in Ottawa and it could hardly have worked better. In Sunrise, the always-tantalizing, often-frustrating forward has found an unlikely home with 40 goals and 46 assists in less than two seasons with the Panthers.
“It’s something that I’m not going to take for granted,” Duclair said Tuesday. “It’s been just a great fit since I’ve been here.”
His first season in South Florida was so invigorating — he had 10 goals and 22 assists while playing on a one-year, $1.7 deal — he decided to resign with the Panthers (52-15-6) on a three-year, $9 million deal before free agency even began, passing up the opportunity to test out the open market in favor of stability.
“He was intelligent enough to realize how good of a fit it was here,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said Tuesday. “Maybe came a little bit—I don’t want to say—under market value, but he just realized what a good fit it was here.”
Even as Duclair has added to his game this year as a legitimate special-teams weapon with nine power-play goals, speed is still his best trait and Florida, with its embarrassment of riches on offense, has found ways to best utilize it.
Mostly, Duclair has played right wing on the Panthers’ top line, with Aleksander Barkov at center and Carter Verhaeghe at left wing. Verhaghe and Duclair might be Florida’s two fastest forwards, and they have a symbiotic relationship with Barkov. The star forward has the vision, playmaking ability and defensive prowess to create breakaway opportunities for them, and their speed opens up the middle of the ice for him.
The same has been true for Duclair when he has played on the second line next to All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau — the best passer in the league — and net-crashing forward Sam Bennett. With his speed, Duclair can field long passes and beat defenses down to the corners of the rink, then make passes back to the trailing forwards as they go to the goal.
“He pushes the pace, which is really good for our team,” Brunette said. “They create space up the ice and it’s spacing that’s valuable in this game ... then you add the skill of a Huberdeau and Barky, and Reino and all these guys — they’re a major piece of why we can do the things we do.”
After scoring Florida’s first goal Tuesday on a fortunate bounce and the game-tying goal on the power play, Duclair nearly won the game in overtime with one of those signature breakaway chances, getting a step on the Ducks’ defense as he barreled down the right side of the ice and going for a wraparound finish, only to be denied by Anaheim goaltender John Gibson on a spectacular save.
Still, Duclair’s effort pinned the Ducks back in their zone and Huberdeau won the game 18 seconds later on a steal-and-score in Anaheim’s zone.
“He fits in the way we want to play and he brings that dimension of speed, can play that kind of pace game,” Brunette said, “and then we’ve got a lot of creative offensive guys that I think he fits in with and I think kind of play to his strengths.”
This story was originally published April 13, 2022 at 9:18 AM.
