Watching Gustav Forsling play ‘a real treat' for fellow Florida Panthers teammates

Miami Herald

14-05-2025

Gustav Forsling's wizardry can sometimes go unnoticed. The Florida Panthers' top defenseman is so sound with his movements, so accurate with his positioning, that his production comes quietly.
But then there comes that standout play that serves as a reminder of just how good he is.
Forsling's latest such play came late in the second period of Florida's 2-0 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday in Game 4 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoffs series.
William Nylander had split Forsling and Aaron Ekblad and was heading down the ice on a breakaway. Forsling, about a step behind Nylander and to the forward's right, hustled to catch up. He got to Nylander just in time to disrupt his shot attempt with a stick check, slowing the puck for goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky to make an easy save to keep Florida's one-goal lead at the time intact.
'I sprinted all I could and just tried to force him on his back,' Forsling said. 'Me and Bob played that well.'
Forsling's comments may have downplayed the moment, but his teammates looked back on it in awe.
'There's words I can't really use to describe that,' defenseman Nate Schmidt said, 'but it was awfully exciting. I really enjoy when a defenseman like Forsy — he does so many things for our team that don't get recognized with his sticks and body positions — for him to be able to negate a guy that has a Grade A chance, that's a huge part of the game, a turning point in the game. If he doesn't do that, they get a better chance or get a rebound and you never know what's gonna happen. I love watching him play. It's a real treat.'
And that treat came after years of development and hard work to get to that point. The Panthers picked up Forsling as a waiver claim a week before the start of the 2020-21 season. Since then, he has evolved from a third-pair player who sometimes saw his partner change nightly to arguably one of the best defensive defensemen in the NHL.
He was rewarded by the Panthers last season with an eight-year contract extension and has rewarded the Panthers in return by consistently playing at a high level every time he's on the ice.
'He's such a powerful skater,' Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. 'He's earned a big tank on him. He can handle big minutes, and also has pretty impressive bursts when he means to. He's earned that. He works so hard. Each year, he comes back more and more fit.'
During the past four years, Forsling has averaged about 22 and a half minutes of ice time per game during the regular season. In that span, his plus-minus rating of 149 is tied for the NHL lead.
In the playoffs during those four years, which included runs to the Stanley Cup Final each of the past two seasons, Forsling is a plus-25 through 44 playoff games. This is in addition to anchoring Florida's penalty kill.
'Gus is fine all by himself,' said Ebklad, Forsling's primary defense partner the past few years. 'He could be in a three-on-one, two-on-one, it doesn't matter. He's an impressive player.'
Added forward Carter Verhaeghe: 'He blocks so many shots. He's such a good defenseman. He has such a good stick. It seems like he knocks everything down. He gets in front of box. He's the most complete defenseman I've ever seen.'
And defenseman Niko Mikkola: 'He has a big tank. He doesn't get tired. The first thing when I got here a year ago was he has a great stick. He's closing the plays with his great stick. That's one thing I've been trying to take from him.'
Beyond the gritty work defensively — 469 blocked shots, 403 hits and 213 takeaways between the regular season and playoffs the past four years — Forsling has shown a knack to produce offensively as well. He has at least 30 points each of the past four seasons despite barely seeing time on the power play.
For context, of the 38 defensemen in the NHL with at least 148 points (the amount Forsling has) during the past four years, Forsling is one of three to do so with fewer than five power-play goals — Devon Toews and Alex Petrangelo are the others.
'He's got a legitimate complaint about not being on the power play,' Maurice said. 'He must be the only defenseman with that many points who doesn't get a sniff on the power play. He can shoot it a ton, so we kind of discovered that about him. ... But no complaints from Gustav ever. He loves what he does.'
Forsling had to adapt late in the season to a rotating cast of defense partners when Ekblad was out for 22 games over a 24-game stretch due to a pair of suspensions — first 20 games for violating the terms of the NHL and NHLPA performance enhancing substances program, then two more for elbowing Tampa Bay Lightning forward Brandon Hagel in Game 4 of the Panthers' first-round playoff series.
Forsling primarily played during that stretch with Seth Jones, acquired in March from the Chicago Blackhawks in a deal that sent goaltender Spencer Knight to Chicago, but also got reps with Nate Schmidt, Uvis Balinskis and Dmitry Kulikov.
Maurice said that type of experience is good for Forsling in the long run.
'I don't think his game has changed a whole lot,' Maurice said. 'He and Aaron have this instinctual chemistry. They have just played together for so long that there is some instinct there. I think sometimes it's good that you get a change with partner. So, he's played with Jones and he's played with just about everybody over the last couple of months and it makes you rethink the game, right? You see the game differently because the situations you are presented with are different. Seth moves the puck differently, gets up the ice differently, so it's good for his growth.'