George Richards, FHN Publisher
FORT LAUDERDALE — Spencer Knight is going to be a starter in the NHL one of these days, only with Sergei Bobrovsky still with the Florida Panthers, it is not going to be today.
And that is OK.
Knight is cool with whatever role the Panthers need him to play right now.
“I am looking forward to this year,” Knight told Florida Hockey Now on Friday morning. “The biggest I have taken from talking to everyone around here is to just play free, don’t think so much. I am having fun at practice, I am mixing in a windmill — which is not my game. When you’re having fun, you’re going off intuition. To me, that’s where I am trying to get to.’’
Knight will open the new season with the Panthers on Tuesday, and should see his first NHL action in 20 months sometime in the coming days.
The 23-year-old had been ordained as Florida’s ‘Goalie of the Future’ ever since the Panthers made him the 13th overall pick of the 2019 NHL Draft.
Ten days later, the Panthers signed Bobrovsky to the largest contract in franchise history — a deal which has two years remaining.
As Bobrovsky likes to say, It Is What It Is.
Knight’s goal is to be a starting goalie in this league and now seems to understand his time will come when it is meant to be.
It was not always that way.
Seeing his Panthers win the Stanley Cup is a motivating factor.
“I was around it, I see what it is like,’’ Knight said. “No. 1, you see how hard it is; No. 2, you see how great it feels at the end to get through all the hard stuff. This is what I want to do. I want to be the guy who plays 70 games through the playoffs, plays deep into the postseason, be the guy they can rely on. That’s what I strive to do. Winning the Stanley Cup really was motivating for me personally.’’
Spencer Knight did not play in a single game with the Panthers last season.
Some may find that strange, considering he not only took the Stanley Cup for a spin around the Sunrise ice after Game 7, but recently took it home to Darien, Conn.
Knight spent the entirety of last season playing in the AHL for the Charlotte Checkers.
This was by design.
After Knight left the Panthers on Feb. 24, 2023, to receive care from the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program for what he later said was treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) which kept him from playing at a high level.
Knight remained away from the team until he petitioned the NHL to work out at Florida’s development camp later that year, with the Panthers signing veteran Anthony Stolarz to serve as Bobrovsky’s backup for the 2023-24 season.
The Panthers wanted Knight to just go to Charlotte and be a goalie again, not worry about his NHL timeline, or anything of the sort.
Instead of riding the bench while Bobrovsky got the majority of the starts, Knight could get back into a groove.
“When you are part of a group, and going through something significant and serious, you are always hopeful for them,” coach Paul Maurice said. “So when he comes back, and he’s around, it feels normal and you are happy for the guy. It goes to his last game, and he played very well the other night. He gets to move around the ice a lot easier, he is back in a lot of ways.’’
Things appear to have worked just as they had hoped: Bobrovsky and Stolarz stayed healthy throughout the season allowing Knight to stay with the Checkers for the entirety of the season.
There was no bouncing back and forth between the two teams. He was able to work with goalie coach Leo Luongo in Charlotte and just be there.
“I think last year was great,’’ Knight said. “I went to Charlotte, and the team there — the coaches, the staff, my teammates — are terrific, and, it’s a great city. But I was able to just go out there and play. For me, last year felt like the most I had felt like a professional hockey player in the sense that I could just get into the games, feel the games, go through the ups-and-downs.
“Sometimes, when you are on the bench and the team gets a big win, yeah, you’re pumped up. But it’s not the same feeling. It’s not the same as if you had to make the big save at the end to win it — or, gave up the goal at the end to lose it. I thought it was a great learning experience.’’
Said general manager Bill Zito: “My confidence in Spencer has never wavered.”
Knight came into this camp as the assumed backup behind Bobrovsky.
Although Florida brought back Chris Driedger, this was Knight’s job to lose — and he did nothing to sway the team’s confidence in him.
Even giving up six goals against Carolina’s A-Squad in a preseason game on Sept. 27 did not shake Knight’s resolve.
He came back, had a strong practice the next day and was solid for Florida throughout the preseason — ending it by making 26 saves in a 2-1 overtime win against the Lightning on Wednesday night.
“We went to Carolina, and that team’s amazing right? But I kind of like that,’’ Knight said. “I liked having a game like that because it was a physical and mental test. Games like that happen during the season, and you have to learn how to turn things around, and come right back.
“Sometimes, feeling bad about a game is better than feeling too good about one. You want the challenge to come back. It was easy to say ‘oh, it’s just the preseason.’ But when you get scored on six times whether it’s a game or a scrimmage, you don’t feel good, right? I think that was good for me. I came in the next day for practice ready to go. We laughed, had a good day. That was good.’’
Once Charlotte’s season ended in the playoffs, Knight and a number of Checkers players came to South Florida to be part of the team’s practice squad.
None of them made it into a playoff game, Knight included.
But Knight was Florida’s No. 3 goalie and worked for months with the team during its run to the Stanley Cup championship.
As the No. 3, he was in uniform and ready at a moment’s notice had Bobrovsky gotten hurt.
So it was that, on June 24, Spencer Knight was the last Florida player to be handed the Stanley Cup. After taking it for a lap, he gave it off to Maurice in a memorable moment.
Even though Knight’s name did not get hammered into the Stanley Cup, the Panthers wanted him to have a day with it.
Knight says he was hesitant to accept.
After all, he did not play in any of the games. He questioned whether he was really part of it.
The Stanley Cup, Zito told him, is bigger than the individual.
Take it home, share it with your family, your friends, and, most importantly, your community.
That is exactly what Spencer Knight did.
Even though he may not think he earned it, everyone else around him does. Knight was there, he was part of it. No one can take that away.
“My biggest fault is that I want to earn it and I am very honest about it,” Knight said. “I did not want a day with the Cup, but Bill called me, and said ‘you’re taking it for a day.’ I wasn’t sure. I want to be a part of a team that wins it and really be a part of it, go through the hard stuff and earn lifting the Cup.
“He told me ‘it means a lot to everyone else.’ You know what? I realized Bill was right. Me bringing it home was not celebrating myself. It was to show all the kids and families, parents and grandparents. They were so happy to see it, be around it for the first time. That was so cool. I remember when the Ducks won in 2007, Ryan Shannon brought the Stanley Cup to Darien. My dad was a police officer at the time, so I was around it. I remember that moment. There are hundreds of kids who were there who remember that too.
“So, it wasn’t about me. And that was the coolest part.’’