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Panthers Training Camp Roster And Notes
With the new collective bargaining agreement finally in place information for the upcoming shortened season is coming out fast. Late last night the 2013, 48 game schedule was released for all 30 National Hockey League teams. Later that evening the Florida Panthers also officially announced their one week training camp roster, which contains 32 players, making for a much shorter list than that of a normal pre-season squad.
Camp began this morning with player physicals and media events, and will continue until Friday, January 18th. Players will hit the ice starting tomorrow, January 14th, at 10:00 AM EST for their first practice. The Panthers will hold an inter-squad scrimmage at 7:00 PM EST on Wednesday, January 16th, at the Saveology.com Iceplex. All training camp events, including Wednesday’s scrimmage, are open to the general public.
2013 Florida Panthers Training Camp Roster:
4 – Keaton Ellerby
9 – Stephen Weiss
11 – Jonathan Huberdeau
12 – Jack Skille
13 – Mike Santorelli
14 – Tomas Fleischmann
17 – Filip Kuba
18 – Shawn Matthias
19 – Scottie Upshall
20 – Sean Bergenheim
22 – George Parros
23 – Tyson Strachan
25 – Jerred Smithson
27 – Alex Kovalev *
30 – Scott Clemmensen
32 – Kris Versteeg
35 – Jacob Markstrom
40 – Marek Svatos *
41 – James Wright
42 – Quinton Howden
43 – Mike Weaver
44 – Erik Gudbranson
50 – Drew Shore
51 – Brian Campbell
52 – Jon Rheault *
55 – Ed Jovanovski
57 – Marcel Goc
60 – Jose Theodore
62 – Michael Caruso
72 – Alexander Petrovic
82 – Tomas Kopecky
88 – Peter Mueller
- Alex Kovalev, Marek Svatos, and Jon Rheault are all participating in Florida’s camp on a tryout basis.
- Panthers fans should notice that a familiar name is missing from the roster, Dmitry Kulikov. The Florida defenseman is currently a restricted free agent and cannot play for the Cats until he signs a new contract.
- Head coach Kevin Dineen said that he will be choosing a captain for the Panthers before their season opener against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, January 19th.
- Sean Bergenheim, Marcel Goc, and Erik Gudbranson are injured. Gudbranson is still recovering from shoulder surgery and has not been cleared yet while the extent of Bergenheim and Goc’s injuries are unknown at this point.
- Bob McKenzie of TSN reported that Florida hopes to have Gudbranson back in the lineup within two to three weeks.
Keep checking back with Sunshine State Hockey for all of the latest Florida Panthers and NHL news.
Booth Traded To Vancouver In 4 Player Swap
Only five minutes before the puck was dropped against the New York Islanders it was announced that fan favorite David Booth was traded to the Vancouver Canucks. In addition to Booth Florida also sent Steven Reinprecht and a third round pick in 2013 to the Canucks in exchange for Mikael Samuelsson and Marco Sturm. Fans were rocked by the trade taking to Twitter to get any bit of information they could in hopes that it was just a rumor but the NHL confirmed it a few minutes later sending everyone into an uproar.
In return for Booth the Panthers get a more defensive reliable forward in Mikael Samuelsson, along with decent offensive numbers (18g 32a 50pts last season with Vancouver). Samuelsson also had a short stint with Florida in 03-04 (37GP) scoring 3g and 9pts. Sturm has scored 20+ goals 7 times in his 15 year career playing for San Jose, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington before signing with Vancouver in the off-season. After getting off to a slow start and not meeting expectations the Canucks had no problem including him in the deal which could end up being a steal for Florida if he returns to his past form. Comparable to Radek Dvorak he gives Florida a solid penalty killer with some speed, but the potential to put up higher numbers than Dvorak did while in Florida is there.
While fans will miss Booth they have to realize that overall this deal makes sense for both teams, Florida drops salary with getting rid of Reinprecht who was buried in the minors as well as defensive and offensive reliable forwards. Vancouver gets a good young player in Booth who could return to form if given time with Daniel and Henrik Sedin on the top line, or even with Ryan Kesler on line two. Booth became expendable when he didn’t meet expectations this past season and got off to a slow start this year going -36 in his past 88 games (he led the league last season with -30 +/- rating).
We all wish Booth well as he may get the push he needs to break out like we all thought he would in years past. He is all but assured a playoff opportunity moving to a weak Western division while playing on the powerhouse Canucks squad. If Samuelsson and Sturm don’t work out for Florida their contracts won’t be renewed (both scheduled to be UFA’s at end of season), and it will clear roster spots for Jonathan Huberdeau and Quinton Howden. Give this trade some time to set in, there is no need to break out the pitch forks and torches and storm the BankAtlantic Center. By February we’ll know exactly how the two teams made out in the deal and at worse we trade the players for more picks in this upcoming draft.
Panthers Trim Pre-Season Roster Down To 46
From Examiner.com
By Marc SpringstonThe Florida Panthers announced this morning that the club has removed 11 players from their pre-season roster, trimming it down from 57 to 46. Josh Birkholz, John McFarland, and Vincent Trocheck were returned to their respective junior clubs while…
To continue reading the article click here.
To see a photo gallery of last night’s double-header visit Sunshine State Hockey’s official Facebook page by clicking here.
Panthers Training Camp Videos
Is everyone still recovering from last nights hockey double-header? Are some fans out there just now waking up from the coma that new PA announcer Jay Rokeach put us in? Either way we are happy to finally present our videos from Saturday’s Florida Panthers training camp at the Saveology.com Iceplex. We apologize that it took so long to upload these but all of us here at Sunshine State Hockey have been a busy bunch trying to get ready for the regular season.
To check out even more of our Florida Panthers coverage please visit SSH’s official YouTube channel by clicking here.
To see our photo gallery of Saturday’s training camp visit SSH’s official Facebook page by clicking here.
SSH Live At The BAC – 09/19
1:35 PM - Good afternoon hockey fans! It’s a hot one today in South Florida, which makes spending six plus hours in the BankAtlantic Center even better. Game 1 starts at 3:00 PM, it’s almost time.
2:10 PM - Hello BAC! The Panthers tailgate crew is back in front of parking marker A42. We will be heading into the building in about 15 minutes.
2:50 PM - Warm-ups finished, 17 minutes until the puck drops on game 1.
3:05 PM - The young Cats are on the ice, Plante is in the net for the first period.
3:15 PM - Six minutes in, Panthers leading in shots 4-2. Plante just made a nice save on a Nashville 2 on 1.
3:30 PM - Close call at the 7:20 mark of the first period. Nashville hammered away at the puck but the referee blew the whistle before the puck crossed the line. Bad news though folks, the phone battery is not going to last through both games. That means not much more coverage from us tonight. We promise to have this fixed by the start of the regular season.
11:25 PM - Good evening hockey fans. We wanted to check back in and apologize once again for the error. Our battery died during the end of the first period of game one and we were unable to recover.
Overall it was a great night of hockey is South Florida. Game two was far more exciting than the first game, especially since there were more “NHL ready” players on squad two. Jonathan Huberdeau played great in game two and was even named the first star.
We wanted to make mention of the new PA announcer for the Florida Panthers, Jay Rokeach. The guy may be a legend around the University of Miami but he does not belong anywhere near the game of hockey. His calls for both games sucked the life out of the building, even when announce a Panthers goal. Here’s a little sample of what his goal announcements sounded like in text form:
“The Flooooorrrrridaaaaa Paaaaantheeers (pause for fans to say goal) scored by…(very long pause to look up players number and name)…(mispronounces name of goal scorer)…Repeating (yes, he actually said the word repeating)…(mispronounces the players name again).”
It was dreadful and made us wonder how Rokeach kept his job with UM for so long. Our best guess is fans of the Hurricanes like their announcers to be similar to their football team; slow, lifeless, and sleep inducing. Was that a shot at UM on a hockey website? Indeed it was, go Noles and go Panthers!
