Colby Guy
SUNRISE — His offensive numbers may not reflect it, but Aaron Ekblad is currently having one of his best seasons for the Florida Panthers.
Since he returned from a shoulder injury in November, Ekblad and Gus Forsling have been one of the best defense pairings in the league, ranking in the Top 10 in expected goals percentage, scoring chance percentage, and high-danger chance percentage per Natural Stat Trick.
While he has yet to score a goal and has just four assists in 15 games, Ekblad’s game is exactly where he and the team want it to be.
“He was a long, strong skating man that had a focus on offense in his life, and understandably because he was so gifted at it and he could generate points,” coach Paul Maurice said.
”But you could take all of the attributes that make you a good offensive player and be a real good defensive player without it costing you.”
Ekblad committed to playing a more vital defensive game last January, working to put himself in a better position defensively and playing a more physical game down low.
He was one of many players who made a complete buy-in to Maurice’s defensively sound system, which helped spark the Panthers’ run to the Stanley Cup Final last year.
So, he decided to use Maurice’s system, which favors defensemen jumping up in the rush, and used it to fine-tune his positioning while backchecking.
“I did it because that was what the game decided I needed to do,” Ekblad told Florida Hockey Now.
“We didn’t need more offense. The team was creating a lot of offense, so getting up in the rush isn’t necessarily for me to be on offense, but it’s to set my gap coming back.
“So, a lot of times, when you see me up in the rush, I’m trying to set my gap so that I’m already skating with those guys as they come out of the zone and creating good gap speed. Forsling and I do that a lot, and our whole d-core does that a lot. It’s just a pillar of hockey that we’ve learned that needs to happen for us to be good.”
When he first started making those changes to his game, it rendered positive results in his offensive game.
In the final 38 games of his 71-game season, Ekblad scored seven of his 14 goals and 19 of his 38 points in 2022-23.
He added another two goals and eight points in 20 games during the playoffs.
Ekblad played through several injuries in the playoffs, including the aforementioned shoulder injury, which kept him out of the lineup to start this season.
Still, his offensive game was only slowed once he tore his oblique in the Stanley Cup Final against Vegas.
“I was able to manage everything until I tore my oblique,” Ekblad said. “That was something that was almost impossible to manage.”
Still, Ekblad scored a goal and an assist during the 5-game Cup Final defeat.
”What happened was that he was so banged up [in the Final] that he could only defend,” Maurice said. “That was all he could do and he became really, really good at it and started to really like it. And we did, too.”
As he was working his way back from the injuries during the offseason and the first month-and-a-half of the regular season, a big focus of his was honing in on that defensive part of the game.
“I learned a lot about the defensive game and what he is asking of me,” Ekblad said.
“That has helped me define a game that I want to play. I want to play a good, hard defensive game.”
In the months he worked alongside Ekblad while recovering from a shoulder injury of his own, Brandon Montour noticed those parts of his game improve as well.
“Even before I got here, a big thing that he had was his offense and shooting the puck,” said Montour, who watched Ekblad as a division rival in Buffalo from 2018-21.
“He always knew that he had the total package and that both offense and defense were a huge strength and a big part of what he does.
“Nothing’s changed. He is just so smart and he knows the game. He is not going to force things offensively if the numbers aren’t there and he might not be the fastest guy either, but his stick is phenomenal, and positionally, you never see him out of position.
The chances have been there for Ekblad, but like so many of his teammates early on in the 2023-24 season, they haven’t been going in.
But that hasn’t deterred Ekblad from playing the style of game he knows suits him best.
“It’s important just to continue to lean on the defensive game and shut down the top lines,” Ekblad said.
“Realistically, I just need to have really good gaps and break out pucks. That’s kind of how I judge my game. If I can break out the puck really well and we are not spending time in the defensive zone, and if I have really good gaps, their top players aren’t getting rush chances. So those are the pillars of my game, and then I build the offense of that.”
Ekblad and Forsling have done just that since they were put together on Nov. 17.
They rank fourth in both Corsi percentage (60.87 percent) and Fenwick percentage (59.30) in that time.
In layman’s terms, that means they are among the best defensive pairings in the league in holding onto possession of the puck and suppressing shots in the other end.
”Defensively, I think he is top in the league in that category, and obviously, he’s got the skillset offensively. You don’t ever lose that,” Montour said.
”His two-way game is better than most, and I’m lucky to be playing with him and we’re lucky to have him on our team.”