‘I live and breathe for the Florida Panthers': Pending UFA Aaron Ekblad hopes to re-sign

New York Times

12 hours ago

EDMONTON — Aaron Ekblad was born in 1996 — the same year the Florida Panthers won three playoff rounds. In 2022, the Panthers finally won their first playoff round since — Ekblad's eighth with the Panthers.
It feels like the once-No. 1 pick in the draft has played forever.
At 29, this is already Ekblad's 11th and what he sure hopes isn't his final season with Florida.
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He has seen a lot of bad in South Florida. And he has lately seen a ton of good as the big, rugged, hard-shooting defenseman plays in his third consecutive Stanley Cup Final and for his second Stanley Cup.
With a maximum of six games left in his season after the Edmonton Oilers took a 1-0 series lead Wednesday night with a 4-3 overtime win, Ekblad admits he's trying not to think this could be the end of his line.
'It'll have to be after the season,' the pending free agent said when asked if he worries that this could be it. 'Obviously a thought one way or another has obviously come into my mind. But at the end of the day, we'll see the way it plays out. Everybody knows where I stand.'
If you don't, let him tell you when I asked him earlier this week how stressful this situation has become.
'I live and breathe for the Florida Panthers. I bleed for the Florida Panthers,' he said. 'I've given my body and everything to this team, and I want to keep doing it … forever, for as long as they'll let me come to the rink.'
Aaron Ekblad has been a part of the long journey to another #StanleyCup Final.@EJHradek_NHL talks with @FlaPanthers former first-overall pick about the road back to the Finals. #TimeToHunt https://t.co/5aftbNSl3g pic.twitter.com/1gmB3x0iJO
— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) June 3, 2025
Some fans can be cynical when a millionaire athlete talks about giving his body to a franchise. But if you don't think so, just look at this Panthers' core's first run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2023.
The difference between them now and then is health. When coach Paul Maurice read off the Florida injuries in his postgame news conference when his team was eliminated in Las Vegas two years ago, the list was endless — especially Ekblad's.
He broke his foot in the Boston first-round series, yet didn't miss a game. He tore his oblique in the Carolina third-round series yet didn't miss a game then or in the Stanley Cup Final.
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What's more, 'My shoulder kept coming out three or four times in the playoffs. I feel as good as I've ever felt now. Two years ago was awful. Could barely get out of bed.'
After the final round, Ekblad recalled that Brandon Montour 'got surgery on a Friday and I was on a Monday.'
'Both shoulders,' Ekblad said.
But, as Ekblad quickly noted, everybody goes through stuff like this when you're a professional hockey player and it's the price of being part of an organization turning into a perennial contender.
Ekblad has been a mainstay in the Panthers' lineup since 2014. This year has been a roller coaster of a season. He produced early and finished with 33 points in 56 games. He got hurt in January. And then says he was blindsided when he tested positive late in the season for a banned performance-enhancing substance that he says was unknowingly in something he was taking to help him recover from injuries.
He was suspended for the final 18 games of the regular season and the first two games of the playoffs. He was not allowed inside the Panthers' facilities whenever the team was there. He says he drew up his own on-ice programs and skated with buddies like former Panthers defenseman Keith Yandle.
And he'd watch defense partner Gustav Forsling's every move during games.
'I'd see something Forzy would do and I tried to mimic it in practice the next day,' he said. 'It was a good lesson in being my own coach for a little bit.'
He blamed himself for not checking with the Panthers' docs and trainers to ensure he could take whatever it was he was taking. He said the hardest lesson was his integrity being called into question: 'There's so many ways you look at it — respect and integrity and character, family, name, my teammates, fans.'
'It's been a bit of a roller coaster for myself, and I'm happy to be in this situation now,' he said before hinting at free agency again. 'You're playing for your life, right, in a sense. So it's been a fun experience playing in a contract year, and I'm happy with the way things have gone.'
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For Ekblad, it's gratifying that he has seen this organization go from one spectrum to the other. And he credits everybody but himself.
'We've always had Sasha Barkov, so there's always hope,' he said. 'Especially in those down years, we always had Barky leading the way. It was tough, right? It was tough times, and it was never easy. But we were never that far out of it, but we couldn't get that push. And the way that the organization's turned things around, from top to bottom, GM, ownership, buying in and giving us the opportunities and giving us this beautiful (practice) rink (in Ft. Lauderdale) and all the things that we need to succeed, everyone has really done a fantastic job all the way through.'
Ekblad has had a strong postseason (11 points in 14 games) alongside Forsling, but Game 1 didn't go as planned. Florida's top defense pair, in nearly 24 minutes, was on the ice for 1.79 expected goals against at five-on-five, two goals against, 29 shot attempts against, 16 shots on goal against and a minus-1.43 expected goals differential. He had several run-ins with Evander Kane starting early in the game.
Kane hammered Ekblad behind the Florida net#LetsGoOilers | #TimeToHunt pic.twitter.com/Pu74E6lW51
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) June 5, 2025
But the franchise's all-time leader in virtually every category for defensemen is hungry for another Stanley Cup.
'I truly believe that after you win one, you want it that much more,' he said. 'And that's the kind of attitude that I think that all the returning players have. The amount of fun and the excitement that you get from it is incredible, and it makes you want it again that much more. So that's where I pull my energy from.'
And then he'll worry about the future. His eight-year, $60 million contract is expiring. The Panthers, with only $19 million in cap space, have a number of free agents to sort through, including Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand.
At 29, he'd be coveted by several teams, including Utah and Dallas, in need of solid right-shot defensemen.
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'I've given everything I can and will continue to give everything that I can to this team,' Ekblad said. 'All the way from the very, very top, they've done such a great job of taking care of us, making Florida such a destination franchise, a place where guys want to come. And it starts with a guy like Sasha Barkov. It's easy to want to play with Aleksander Barkov. It's easy to want to come play with (Sergei Bobrovsky and Matthew Tkachuk).
'And there's been some tough decisions made by management along the way, and all for the betterment of the team.'
He just hopes he's not the next tough decision because, as the Panthers lifer said, he hopes to stay 'forever.'