Florida Panthers Dealt Major Blow

The Florida Panthers are expected to be without goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky for the start of the regular season and at this point details on when he's expected to return are extremely limited. 

The Russian netminder who signed a massive 7-year, $70 million deal before the start of last season did not have a very good season in the Sunshine State in 2019-20 and the team was hoping for a bounce back year. With no training camp and the mystery surrounding Bobrovsky's absence, this is certainly not the start Panthers' fans were hoping for.

Based off Coach Q's comments, it seems fairly clear that Sergei Bobrovsky will not be ready for Opening Night.

Bob has yet to take the ice for training camp (when the media has been present) and remains on the Unfit to Play list.

— David Dwork (@DavidDwork) January 12, 2021

Last season in his first as a Panther, the 32-year-old recorded a 3.23 goals against average and a .900 save percentage in 50 games, which quite frankly isn't good enough when you're making seven sheets a season. 

Unfortunately for the Panthers management, Bobrovsky could be on his way to becoming an expensive back up. If you were a fan of the recent World Junior Hockey Championships, you saw in the gold medal game versus Canada and USA, both netminders were drafted by the Florida Panthers. Spencer Knight and Devon Levi both aren't expected to see any action this year in the show, but it's only a matter of time before they are pushing for the crease.

Photo credit: Kevin Abele/Icon Sportswire

Live look at Sergei Bobrovsky after watching Spencer Knight’s performance. pic.twitter.com/7sH4gDwzUf

— Christopher Morais (@fuzzychris91) January 6, 2021