FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Jacob Markstr\u00f6m knows talent. That’s why, in 2013, he tossed the keys to his Range Rover to a Florida Panthers rookie who needed to borrow a car for his driving test.<\/p>\n
The rookie was Aleksander Barkov.<\/p>\n
\u201cI figured he\u2019s probably going to make a lot of money because I saw him saw him in practice and he looked pretty darn good,” Markstr\u00f6m said. “I figured if he crashes the car, he can buy me a new one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Markstrom was right on all counts. Barkov didn’t crash the car, wound up passing the test, became a highly paid superstar for the Panthers and has been largely obsessed with nice cars ever since. But he and Markstr\u00f6m didn’t stay teammates for long; they shared the ice for only 12 games before Markstr\u00f6m got moved to Vancouver in the deal that returned Roberto Luongo to Florida.<\/p>\n
Now, it’s Markstr\u00f6m’s turn to take a big test. The 36-year-old is back in Florida, presumably taking over as the primary goaltender and filling the spot that Sergei Bobrovsky \u2014 who was in net for the Panthers’ Stanley Cup championship runs in 2024 and 2025 \u2014 vacated when he decided to sign with Toronto this summer.<\/p>\n
It’s been made clear to Markstr\u00f6m that he doesn’t need to be Bobrovsky. Being himself should be plenty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had some fun moments that first season when he was here,” Barkov said. “I think he\u2019s an unbelievable goalie. Big goalie, too. Covers a lot of the net, and he competes a lot. He’s out there competing, practicing every single day, doesn\u2019t give up on any pucks. That\u2019s really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Florida got Markstr\u00f6m in a trade with the New Jersey over the summer, ushering in the end of Bobrovsky\u2019s storied run in South Florida. The Panthers gave up Evan Rodrigues \u2014 who played a huge role in Florida winning Game 7 of the 2024 Cup Final against Edmonton \u2014 and Jesper Boqvist in the deal, meaning it wasn’t exactly a nominal price.<\/p>\n
\u201cJacob is an established veteran leader in this league who possesses size and a relentless drive to win,\u201d Panthers general manager Bill Zito said when the trade happened.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-6 Markstr\u00f6m is going into his 17th season. Among goalies who are expected to play this season, only Bobrovsky (806), Connor Hellebuyck (625) and Andrei Vasilevskiy (598) have appeared in more games than Markstr\u00f6m (578).<\/p>\n
The glaring hole on Markstr\u00f6m’s resume is clear: He has never made a deep playoff run. He played in the 2020, 2022 and 2025 postseasons, but has yet to be part of a team that got past the second round.<\/p>\n
Florida clearly has higher aspirations. That’s one of many reasons why Markstr\u00f6m wanted to be back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the expectations are as high as anywhere else,” Markstr\u00f6m said. \u201cEveryone here has won, and they’ve won multiple times. They know what it takes to win and to be successful. And just walking into the gym and walking into the locker room, you can feel it. That\u2019s a good thing to have in a locker room around the guys and the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
That might not have been the case in his first stint with the Panthers, which ended when he was traded in 2014 to Vancouver for Luongo, the Florida legend who remains with the team as part of the front office.<\/p>\n
Markstr\u00f6m appeared in 43 games with Florida over those years; the team won only 11 of them. Attendance for Panthers games was near the bottom of the NHL, even with what appeared to be some generous counting procedures. The team wasn’t good, and worse, it seemed like a new rumor regarding relocation \u2014 Seattle or Quebec City were the purported targets \u2014 would pop up every week.<\/p>\n
It’s all very different now. The Panthers nearly filled their building for a preseason game a few days ago and once the puck drops for real will be one of the hottest tickets in hockey. The team practices in a state-of-the-art palace in downtown Fort Lauderdale, a far cry from the rather pedestrian facility that the Panthers used to call their off-day home. And best of all, the team is good. Maybe great.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just been super impressed with what the team and the organization and (owner) Vinnie Viola has done to this franchise,” Markstr\u00f6m said. “It\u2019s really impressive and playing against this team for the last decade or so, you can see it every year, taking steps to become a better and better team, then getting to three finals in four years and two Stanley Cups. To be here and to be part of something new and a really hungry group. I\u2019m just super excited. It’s a privilege and it is an honor to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Jacob Markstr\u00f6m knows talent. That’s why, in 2013, he tossed the keys to his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7600,28,30,29,16995,5691,122],"class_list":["post-410538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-panthers","tag-nhl","tag-wires-bot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}