A strong goalie tandem is necessary for a deep playoff run and a good regular season. Last year, the Panthers had just that in Sergei Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz. While Bobrovsky took the majority of the starts, Stolarz was extremely solid as the backup and played well whenever he was called in. The departure of Stolarz, though, opens the door for either Spencer Knight or Chris Driedger to move into an NHL spot, as both played in the AHL last year. Both players are ready to make the jump to full-time in the NHL, so it’s going to be quite the fight to see who ends up with the backup job.
Sergei Bobrovsky:
After having a bit of a struggle the last couple of seasons, Bob is back and better than ever. He regained his form during the 2023 playoff run to the Stanley Cup Final and hasn’t looked back since. Sure, there’s a bad game here and there, but every player has an off day, and it’s not indicative of their overall performance. Bob’s performance this year earned him a Vezina nomination alongside Demko and Hellebyuck. He started 58 games last season and went 36-17-4 with a GA average of 2.37, his best average since the 2016-2017 season with the Blue Jackets, where he played 63 games and had a 2.06 GA. Bobrovsky also ended the season with his best save percentage since joining the Panthers at .915, and that’s his best mark since 2017-2018, where he posted a .921. Along with that, Bob had six shutouts this season, which is the third-highest of his career; he had two seasons with the Blue Jackets, where he had seven & nine shutout seasons. This season, Bob saw the sixth most shots against of his career and the most shots against during his tenure with Florida. For the postseason this year, Bob started all 24 playoff games, getting the full 16 wins for the Stanley Cup and eight losses. He had an even better GA, which dropped to 2.33, although his SV% dropped to 9.06. I wouldn’t put too much stock into that SV% as it doesn’t always tell the whole story of how he did during the playoffs. Out of 24 games, there were only five games where he allowed more than three goals, and that number only goes up to seven if you include games where opponents scored at least three goals. In most of the games, he allowed two goals or less and on top of that for the majority of the playoffs he didn’t see a huge number of shots of goal, during the Boston series the Bruins posted back-to-back games of fewer than 20 SOG for the entire game. There’s almost no one in the hockey sphere who hasn’t seen the no-look save he made during Game 2 of the Tampa series, and that one save alone tells you all you need to know about how locked in and determined he was the entire year. All season long, his teammates talked about how confident they were in him and that he would make the saves that the defense couldn’t stop or get to. It seems that Bobrovsky is only getting better with age and doesn’t show any signs of slowing down going into this season as the Panthers look to defend their Stanley Cup title.
Spencer Knight:
Knight spent last season with the Charlotte Checkers and started 44 games with a record of 25-14-5. He had a 2.41 GA, .905 SV%, and posted five shutouts. This year, he had the second most wins and shutouts of his career with the Checkers, and his SV% has remained steady as he had a .905 SV% in two out of his three years with the team, the one outlier being last year when he had a .918 SV% but he only played two games. This year was the most games he’d played with the Checkers. Charlotte didn’t have a deep run during the Calder Cup, so he only played two games in the postseason. Knight had one win and one loss with a 1.87 GAA and a .925 SV%. All in all, he’s had a strong showing with the Checkers and could move into the backup role for the Panthers, but Chris Driedger had an equally good year last year, so training camp and pre-season will be important to determine who gets the nod.
Chris Driedger:
Driedger has spent the last two seasons with the Seattle Kraken organization and has been playing with the Coachella Valley Firebirds. He didn’t start during the 2022-2023 season; that job went to Joey Daccord, but he was the Firebirds starting goalie this past season. Driedger played 39 games and had a record of 24-7-7 with four shutouts. Chris posted the most wins of his AHL career and the fewest losses of any season that he’s been the starter. The four shutouts were also the most in a single season of his career, and he posted a career-best 2.26 GAA with a .917 SV%, his second-best SV% out of a starting season. Driedger also missed games with the Firebirds as he got called up to the Kraken main roster when Philipp Grubauer was out injured, this allowed him to experience the Kraken’s Winter Classic game although Daccord was the starter for that match. In the two games he played for the Kraken last year, he had one win, a 2.51 GAA, and a .917 SV%. Driedger took his team all the way to the Calder Cup Finals, where he started all 18 games of the playoff run with 12 wins, six losses, and one shutout. Chris ended the playoffs with a 2.67 GAA and a .906 SV%. In looking at a one-to-one comparison with Joey Daccord, who was a rookie goaltender this year, Driedger’s regular season numbers are very similar to Joey, who had a record of 26-8-3, three shutouts, 2.38 GAA, and a .918 SV% in the AHL last year with the Firebirds team. The biggest difference between the two is in the GAA and SV% of the playoffs, where Daccord had a 2.22 GAA and a .926 SV%, but he also played 26 games as opposed to 18. Joey also ended with 15 wins as opposed to Driedger’s 12 but that could also be attributed to the team in front of him, not necessarily just on how Chris played. I know there are Panthers fans who are assuming that Knight will get the starting job, but personally, I don’t think it’s a slam-dunk decision one way or the other, especially with Chris coming off a deep playoff run. Daccord made a rather seamless transition from the AHL to the NHL this year after a great season with the Firebirds, and I think Driedger could do the same for the Panthers.
Florida has strong goaltending options going into next year. Bob will obviously be the number one guy, but there’s a great opportunity for a new goalie to enter the picture as the backup. Whoever ends up getting the backup job will need to be strong when not playing as often, as you never know when they’ll be needed. One of Stolarz’s best attributes was that he was locked in and ready to play on any given night. The best example of that was when HC Paul Maurice opted to pull Bob during Game 4 of the STF and put Stolarz in after he hadn’t played in over a month. Stolarz still looked great in the net and you’d never know he hadn’t been playing. I’ll be keeping my eyes on the Florida Panthers training camp and who plays with which players during the preseason. With this, my preview of the Florida roster is complete; next week, I’ll start looking at the coaches on the bench, starting off with HC Paul Maurice.
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