How the Panthers keep finding out-of-nowhere contributors such as defenseman Josh Mahura
Josh Mahura, on the day he found out he was going to become a Florida Panther, could already think of a long list of why he was excited to wind up in his new home.
First of all, there was the weather.
“I got pretty lucky,” Mahura said, smiling just a few months after the Anaheim Ducks waived him. “I got to leave a few of my winter jackets behind.”
More importantly, there was the notion of joining up with the defending Presidents’ Trophy winners and having seen what they had done with reclamation projects in the past few years. With star defenseman MacKenzie Weegar gone in the Panthers’ offseason trade for superstar right wing Matthew Tkachuk, Mahura also knew there was going to be a chance for him to play — a lot.
Exactly four months after it claimed Mahura off waivers, Florida signed Mahura to a one-year, $925,000 extension Friday. Even in a mostly frustrating season, Mahura has managed to become the Panthers’ latest out-of-nowhere success story, and an encouraging reminder about how adept general manager Bill Zito and his staff still can be at making meaningful moves.
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Mahura, 24, entered Florida’s road game against the Minnesota Wild on Monday at the Xcel Energy Center with 11 points — already a career high — and the defenseman’s plus-minus of plus-12 was tied for third best on the team.
“It’s a testament to management and the group that was in the room before I came,” Mahura said. “Obviously, there’s something to be said about someone believing in you and someone giving you an opportunity to showcase what you can do. Whether you had that chance before, you get a fresh start.”
Mahura is just the latest in a run of low-profile additions to work out for the Panthers since Zito arrived in South Florida in 2020. In his first offseason, Zito pulled left wing Carter Verhaeghe off the Tampa Bay Lightning’s fourth line and watched him blossom into a no-doubt top-six forward, rejuvenated right wing Anthony Duclair’s career by signing him to a one-year deal when most of the league wasn’t interested and claimed defenseman Gustav Forsling off waivers when the Carolina Hurricanes waived him, only to have him turn into a reliable fixture in the back end.
Although he hasn’t been quite as big a contributor as those three so far, Mahura is a quietly important cog in making these Panthers run. Florida badly needed defensive depth after trading Weegar to the Calgary Flames, and Mahura is an everyday player in the lineup as part of the third defensive pairing with Radko Gudas.
Opportunity has been a big part of why Mahura is in the middle of the best season of his career. He has played in every game so far this year for the Panthers — 56, including their game against the Wild in Saint Paul, Minnesota — after never playing more than 38 in any of his four years with the Ducks.
“He’s getting that critical experience of night-in and night-out hockey, and sometimes those bubble guys get in and out of the lineup so often that they never get into a rhythm where they can truly improve,” coach Paul Maurice said Saturday. “He’s improved.”
Both Mahura and Maurice, though, believe the breakout — and Florida’s perpetual success with under-the-radar finds — is more due to the organization’s ability to spot a specific skill and figure out how it will fit into a larger hole.
When he first talked to Zito last year, Mahura came away from the conversation understanding exactly what the Panthers valued about him. They loved his skating, and how his speed and passing ability would let him break the puck out of the defensive zone. It let them pair him with Gudas — a more stationary, defensive-minded defenseman — and quickly manufacture one of the NHL’s more successful third pairings, with Gudas covering up some of Mahura’s defensive deficiencies and Mahura being allowed to play more aggressively on offense with the knowledge Gudas would be behind him.
“Try to utilize what you’re best at,” Mahura said.
The same has been true of Verhaeghe and Duclair — both of whom have had their speed and skating ability accentuated when they get to play next to All-Star forwards — and of Forsling, whose natural athletic ability has translated into results with a longer leash.
“They will always say, I got my chance, which is true,” Maurice said, “but they got a chance with some really good players that I think brought out the best in him.”
Up next
The Panthers continue their four-game road trip Tuesday at 8 p.m. against the St. Louis Blues at the Enterprise Center in Missouri. It’s Florida’s first back-to-back set of February and it’s last — a welcome change of pace after the Panthers grinded through 11 games in 19 days in the middle of January.
This is Florida’s second meeting with the Blues (24-25-3) this season, and first and only trip to St. Louis. The Panthers lost at home to the Blues right after Thanksgiving, but All-Star center Aleksander Barkov did not play, as he was battling pneumonia.
Goaltender Spencer Knight could be in line to make his first NHL appearance in more than a month, if Maurice wants to avoid using star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky on back-to-back days. Knight spent much of last month on injured reserve with an unspecified injury, making just a pair of starts for AHL Charlotte as part of a conditioning stint.
