The Florida Panthers appear to be giving goaltender Spencer Knight some time to shake off some rust, as he has been assigned their AHL team, the Charlotte Checkers.
Knight, 22, spent the final two months of the season, as well as the entirety of the Panthers’ playoff run to the Stanley Cup Final, with the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program after he was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and found that his focus on avoiding germs and staying clean was interfering with his on-ice play.
With Knight’s last game being on Feb. 18th, the Panthers hoped to get him into game shape again before throwing him into an NHL regular season game. It also allows Florida to delay placing Anthony Stolarz on waivers, as Knight is still not eligible for waivers.
When Knight did get into NHL action in 2022-23, it wasn’t the performance he was likely hoping for. In 21 games, he had a 9-8-3 record, a .901 save percentage, and a -4.48 5v5 goals saved above expected, with the latter stat being the 20th worst among goalies last season. He also played two games in the AHL with the Checkers, where he had a 1-1-0 record and a .918 save% in those games.
With Knight being sent down, it means that the Florida Panthers will be going with the goalie tandem of Sergei Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz to start the season. Bobrovsky went 24-20-3 with a .901 save% during the regular season last year, but saw his play improve significantly during the Panthers’ Cup Final run with a 12-6 record and a .915 save%. Stolarz had his worst season as an Anaheim Duck in 2022-23 with a 5-6 record and an .899 save%.
Knight was the 13th overall pick for the Panthers in 2019, drafted out of the US National Development program. After two seasons with Boston College, he signed his NHL entry-level contract and joined the Panthers near the end of the 2020-21 season.
Knight is starting the first year of his three-year contract with a $4.5 million cap hit, an extension that he signed before the start of the 2022-23 season.
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