From enforcers Paul Laus and Peter Worrell to Bill Zito throwing an MLB first pitch and Panthers on the hot seat, we touched on a lot
Things felt like they went up a little notch last week.
We’re starting to hear more about players getting on the ice, we’re looking ahead to the season with betting odds in mind, fans are planning out which games and trips they’re going to take…it’s almost hockey season, people!
The Hockey News had some fun by holding a special Enforcers Week and posting tons of great tough guy-based content, and over here at THN Florida we got in on the action.
First, we tackled the list of the guys who fought the most for the Florida Panthers.
We then went through 30 years of Panthers history in search of players who you’d want if building a team of all enforcers.
Finally, it wouldn’t be a Panthers-themed Enforcers Week if we didn’t pay homage to the franchise’s OG tough guy, Paul Laus.
Speaking of paying homage, Florida GM Bill Zito was honored by the first professional franchise his worked for, the Milwaukee Brewers.
Zito was a bat boy on the Brewers 1982 American League Champion team, and last week they invited Zito back to Milwaukee to throw out the first pitch before a home game.
The last we heard of Panthers goalie Spencer Knight, he was having a great time during Florida’s development camp that took place in Coral Springs last month.
Last week he was back home in Connecticut, and he joined several NHL stars skating in a special charity game.
Another Panthers player who returned home recently was defenseman Brandon Montour, and he was given a hero’s welcome at Six Nations.
This month The Hockey News is doing a Hot Seat Radar series in which they go from team to team and choose three players, one on the hot seat, one on the warm seat and a third on the cold seat. We dove into their three Panthers picks and discussed if and why they were good ones.
The good folks over at BetMGM recently put out their future odds for the NHL, so naturally we took a look at where they had the defending Eastern Conference Champion Panthers lining up.
Another thing that happened recently was single-game tickets went on sale for Florida’s upcoming season, so we went through the home schedule and picked out some of the best games to attend at FLA Live Arena.
THN Florida also started a series on players we consider breakout candidates in 2023-24, and the first player we featured was third year center Anton Lundell.
The second breakout candidate was posted Saturday, and it’s defenseman Josh Mahura.
Our final piece of news from the past week was quite good, as Panthers captain Sasha Barkov and his hockey playing buddy and countryman Patrik Laine held their annual gold tournament in Finland and raised quite a bit of money for a great cause.