Spencer Knight discusses battle with OCD, resuming NHL career with Panthers

Knight left the Panthers and entered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program in March

Spencer Knight is in South Florida, preparing for a new hockey season with the Florida Panthers.

The 22-year-old former first-round pick has long been considered one of the top young goaltending prospects in hockey.

Last season, for a time, there was thought that Knight’s career could be in jeopardy.

While playing in his second full season with Florida, Knight left the Panthers in March to join the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program.

Speaking exclusively to Ken Campbell of The Hockey News, Knight reveled the reason that he sought help was for a growing issue with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

“I was spiraling in a direction I didn’t want to be going,” Knight said to Campbell.

A problem that started while Knight was in college, feeling the need to be constantly washing his hands, eventually led to him being in a place mentally that he felt he couldn’t continue playing in the NHL.

Things began to get bad for Knight last season following a December road game in Winnipeg in which Knight was pulled early in the second period after giving up three goals on 15 shots.

After the game, Knight began feeling worse and worse, eventually being diagnosed with the flu, but it was then that he said something clicked in his head and he began obsessing about getting sick and contracting diseases, to the point where he was struggling to sleep and having trouble functioning in his daily activities. 

So Knight made the decision to take care of himself and enter the program. When his teammates were making an improbable and remarkable run to the Stanley Cup Final later that season, Knight was watching on TV.

During his time away from the team, Knight said he worked with an OCD expert while speaking to others who suffer from OCD about managing the disorder so they could live their normal, everyday lives. He told Campbell in the interview that he is feeling much better equipped to take life as it comes.

Now he’s just excited to resume his career and help his teammates get back to competing for the Stanley Cup.

“I can still be the player I want to be, and I still believe I can be one of the best goalies in this league,” Knight said. “Maybe it’s this year, maybe it’s next year, maybe it’s in three years or four years or five years. I don’t know. I know what I’m capable of accomplishing. It was there before and it has been there the whole time.”