How Nate Schmidt carved out his Florida Panthers role. Plus Bobrovsky’s mask and more notes
A near mental lapse almost cost Nate Schmidt a chance to score a goal in his first game against his former team.
The Florida Panthers defenseman was in awe as teammate Sam Bennett weaved and bobbed past a slew of Winnipeg Jets skaters on his way to the net. Jets goaltender Connor Hellebyuck denied Bennett’s backhanded shot, but the puck flew straight to Schmidt in the left circle. Schmidt fired a quick wrist shot on the secondary attempt for the goal to give Florida an early two-goal advantage in its eventual 5-0 win on Saturday.
“My controller disconnected for a second,” Schmidt said through a laugh. “I was watching Benny as a fan. I stopped skating for a second and was like, ‘Wow, nice play! Wait, I should probably be down there.’ It felt good.”
Schmidt, 33 and in his 12th NHL season, spent the previous three seasons with the Jets before having the final year of his contract bought out before the offseason. He signed a one-year, $800,000 contract with the Panthers on July 3 with the hopes of being the latest veteran to kickstart his career in Florida.
Things have worked out so far. After being a healthy scratch on opening night, he has carved out a role as part of Florida’s third defense pairing with Uvis Balinskis and is running the second power-play unit. He has three goals (already one more than his final season in Winnipeg) and three assists in 17 games played.
“I think there was a big curve for him coming in, and sometimes the curve is longer for older players,“ coach Paul Maurice said. “They have ingrained habits or they have played in a system for a while that is completely different than ours, so it takes them a little while to get and I think he did, but he’s a smart player, and we feel he’s more suited to play our game than possibly what he’s been doing recently, so he’s made good improvements.”
The Panthers (12-5-1) and Jets (15-3-0) will face off again Tuesday in Winnipeg (8 p.m., Scripps) to complete the home-and-home series.
While it will be Schmidt’s first game back in Manitoba since being bought out, the defenseman said he has no hard feelings toward his former team and his focus is on what the Panthers have to do to win again against a Winnipeg team with the best record in the league.
That means playing similar to how they did Saturday, when they generated rebounds to get secondary scoring chances, suppressed Winnipeg’s high-flying offense and played technically sound defense.
“I just really liked our energy,” Schmidt said. “From the start of the game, our bench was going really well. When that happens, you can just feel it up and down with every guy.”
Bobrovsky’s mask
Star Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky on Saturday produced a 27-save shutout in the Panthers’ win against Winnipeg. It was his first of the season, 12th overall with the Panthers and 45th of his career — the third most by a Russian-born goaltender behind only Evgeni Nabokov (59) and Nikolai Khabibulin (46).
And it came on a fitting night.
Saturday was the Panthers’ “Hockey Fights Cancer” game, a charitable initiative by the NHL and NHL Players Association dedicating to raising money and awareness toward cancer research. Every NHL team holds at least one Hockey Fights Cancer game each season, normally in October and November.
During the month of November, Bobrovsky wears a purple mask to support the Hockey Fights Cancer initiative.
“It’s great that the NHL does these kinds of things to support the people who are really fighters,” Bobrovksy said. “It’s just the little things I can do for the people facing those challenges.”
On the season, Bobrovsky is 9-3-1 through 13 starts. His win on Saturday was also the 150th of his Panthers tenure.
Notable stats
▪ The Panthers’ five short-handed goals lead the NHL this season. The New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders are tied for second in the league with three. Forward Sam Reinhart leads the way with an NHL-best three short-handed goals and four short-handed points. Aleksander Barkov and Gustav Forsling have scored Florida’s other two shorthanded goals.
▪ With a three-assist effort on Saturday, Reinhart is now on a 10-game point streak, becoming the fifth player in franchise history with multiple double-digit point streaks. The others are Pavel Bure (three times), Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau and Mike Hoffman. Reinhart has 16 points (eight goals, eight assists) in this 10 game stretch.
▪ Since returning to the lineup on Oct. 28 following an eight-game absence due to a lower-body injury, Barkov is averaging two points per game, scoring three goals and dishing out 13 assists over the past eight games.
Barkov has at least one assist in all eight games, which is tied for the second-longest streak in franchise history. The team record is 10 consecutive games, done by Huberdeau from Jan. 27-Feb. 26, 2022.
The week ahead
After playing at Winnipeg on Tuesday, the Panthers will finish their quick two-game road trip against the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday (8:30 p.m., ESPN+/Hulu) before starting a three-game homestand on Saturday against the Colorado Avalanche (6 p.m., Scripps).
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