Why the Panthers think Aaron Ekblad’s playoff run was the ‘finest moment of his career’
Paul Maurice could hear the FLA Live Arena crowd grumble while Aaron Ekblad tried to chase a puck into the corner on one of the Florida Panthers’ penalty kills late in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, and wished he could have turned around and screamed out why.
“The guy’s foot’s broken!” the coach said last Thursday, imagining what he might have done had the Panthers not chosen to be coy about what was ailing the star defenseman. “He popped his shoulder out! He can’t move!”
The list of injuries, which Maurice first revealed after Florida lost the 2023 Stanley Cup Final and Ekblad confirmed last Thursday, was astonishing. Ekblad broke his foot in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and only missed one game, then dislocated his shoulder and had to get tested for a concussion at one point. He will need surgery this offseason to repair his shoulder — it has been a nagging issue, the 27-year-old Canadian said — and expects to miss the start of the 2023-24 NHL season as he recovers.
Even though the two-time All-Star has played better hockey in his career, Ekblad was never more impressive than he was in the Cup playoffs, Maurice believes.
“He didn’t play the game that it necessarily looked like when he was banging in a bunch of points or you’re saying, OK, he’s a Norris Trophy guy,” Maurice said, “but in terms of what he gave his team, it was his finest moment of his career, in my mind, because he survived and helped us beat three really good teams.”
Ekblad finished the playoffs with just two goals, six assists, one power-play point and 26 shots, but his plus-minus of plus-nine was second best on the team behind only superstar right wing Matthew Tkachuk and his 29 blocked shots were tied for third most.
At the end of an often frustrating season, Ekblad played his best during the most important moments, even though he was battling through multiple injuries.
“It was not easy, but it was worth it and it was fun,” he said. ”You adjust to the pain and it gets easier as it goes. The first few weeks with the foot was tough and it was more painful off the ice than on, which was good. Your body just adjusts.”
In the regular season, Ekblad had just 14 goals and 24 assists in 71 games — his 0.54 points per game were his fewest since the 2018-19 NHL season — and he had a negative plus-minus for only the second time in his career and first time since the 2016-17 NHL season.
Nearly every Panther struggled to some degree with the adjustment to Maurice’s system — at least, the ones who were in South Florida before the 56-year-old Canadian took over last year — and the change was particularly hard on the defense and especially an offensive-minded defenseman like Ekblad.
With former interim coach Andrew Brunette and former coach Joel Quenneville before him, the Panthers mostly played zone coverage on defense. With Maurice, Florida played man-on-man coverage.
“Our defensive system is completely different from what we did last year and from what I probably did the previous five years,” Ekblad said. “You saw that adjustment about halfway through. It picked up a lot in the second half just because of learning the system.”
Ekblad also spent time on long-term injured reserve early in the season with a groin injury and finally was starting to get healthy in the second half of the year before another onslaught of injuries hit him in the postseason.
Whether Ekblad can ever get back to contending for the James Norris Memorial Trophy like he quietly did in the 2021-22 NHL season will mostly come down to health. He has spent time on long-term IR in three straights years and was noticeably slower last season, forced to change his style of play a bit and ultimately come off the top power-play unit.
He also won’t just be defined by whether he can contend for Norris Memorial Trophies, though. To win the award for best defenseman, a skater usually needs to pile up points, and Ekblad might never score again like he did earlier this decade because of Maurice’s system and star defenseman Brandon Montour’s emergence.
In the playoffs, he proved he doesn’t have to.
“I was excited about his willingness to change the game and give you what he had,” Maurice said. “He had a lot of big moments that, because we knew what he was going through, you would celebrate on the bench when he was able to do something that you’re like, Oh, that’s pretty good that he did that. Those are the things that build the room.”
