Panthers defenseman Gus Forsling speaks to the media following Florida's 4-0 loss in Seattle on Dec. 12. Navigating the start of the 2023-24 season was never going to be easy for the Florida Panthers. With defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour missing the first 16 games due to offseason shoulder surgeries, it was not only one player who had to step in and fill in their roles. The team has played 12 games since their return, but one player specifically is still playing a major role. That is defenseman Gustav Forsling. Prior to the 2021 season, the Panthers picked Forsling off of waivers from the Carolina Hurricanes, where he ended up playing a key role in the Panthers finishing second in the Central Division behind those same Hurricanes. That season, the NHL played 56 games and realigned divisions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Florida would eventually lose in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games. Forsling would play a majority of that season on the second defense pair with Radko Gudas before the Panthers traded for Brandon Montour at the 2021 trade deadline. Forsling had not had an established home before coming to Florida. The Swedish defenseman was picked in the fifth round (126th overall) in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft by the Vancouver Canucks. Forsling’s signing rights were traded less than a year after he was drafted to the Chicago Blackhawks. After signing his entry-level contract, he jumped up and down between the NHL level and the Blackhawks’ American Hockey League affiliate, the Rockford Icehogs, Forsling was still in the process of polishing his game. After 122 games played with Chicago, and scoring 27 points, Forsling was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes, but never played a game for them at the NHL level. He spent the entirety of the 2020 season with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers, the Hurricanes affiliate at the time, where he played 57 games. The six-foot, 186-pound defenseman showed promise to the Panthers coaching staff in year one with the organization, with his quick speed to pucks, ability take away the shooting lanes of the opposition, and occasionally play on the man advantage. There was something there with Forsling. In the Bill Zito era, Florida has been known to take chances on players who did not work out in other places or players were not in winning situations and wanted a change. There have been a multitude of moves that the Panthers have made over the years that has sent a message that they believe Forsling can take the next step. First one was the expansion draft in the summer of 2021, when the Seattle Kraken were coming into existence. Florida had some spots that were automatically filled due to no-move clauses, such as Sergei Bobrovsky, Aleksander Barkov, and Jonathan Huberdeau. Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjAwNjE3OTM2NjIzMjQ4NDky/img_6014.jpg] There was, however, a very difficult decision that Zito made during the buyout period. With two years left on his contract, they decided to buy out the contract of defenseman Keith Yandle in order to put Forsling on the Panthers expansion draft protection list, as there was a chance that Forsling could’ve been picked otherwise. The Kraken later signed goaltender Chris Driedger, which would count as the pick from the Panthers. Forsling, in that same offseason, signed a three-year, $8 million deal with the Panthers, which meant that he was seen as a valuable piece after taking a chance on him the prior season. The second was when the team decided to include defenseman MacKenzie Weegar in a trade that brought forward Matthew Tkachuk to Florida. The highlight was shipping out home grown players Weegar and Huberdeau, but it was also about a belief that Forsling was ready to play an even bigger role, a slow and steady process during his Panthers tenure. Forsling has over a year of experience on the top pair, and a trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 2022 was a huge building block. The experience that he had from last season built him up for when Ekblad and Montour were sidelined. In the first 16 games, Forsling led the Panthers in average time on ice at 23:56 while playing alongside veteran Oliver Ekman-Larsson. He was also tied for sixth in the NHL in plus-minus. Forsling is still playing on the top pair but is mostly playing at even strength. His time on ice is down due to Ekblad, Montour and Ekman-Larsson being on the ice while the Panthers are on the power play. He has not slowed down though. Offensively, he is third on the team in shots since his teammates returned on November 17th with 30. Forsling is not afraid to get up in the rush and if there is a split second where if the team is cycling and he sees that the opposing goaltenders’ eyes are taken away, he will fire the puck from the point and look for redirection. The defense pair of Ekblad and Forsling also have an expected goals percentage of 60%, the highest of any pair this season, mostly doing it on the defensive end as the two limit the amount of high danger chances and with the Panthers as one of the best teams in the NHL in slot shots against. Forsling’s performance through 28 games has him in fourth in the NHL in plus-minus with a plus-17 rating, alongside three goals and six assists. He is also third in blocked shots with 39. The Swedish defenseman has really put himself in a position where he has been and will continue to be a main stay in the league, whether he re-signs with the Panthers this offseason or gets a raise elsewhere, and it goes back to the slow and steady development and commitment that both Forsling and the Panthers had from day one that has resulted in individual success and team success. 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