RALEIGH, N.C. \u2013 It\u2019s been a minute for Jacob Markstrom.<\/p>\n
Making his first start for the Florida Panthers in 4,955 days, the 36-year-old goaltender turned aside all 15 shots he faced in 1-0 overtime win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Like he never left, right?<\/p>\n
“I thought we played a great game,\u201d Markstrom said. \u201cEveryone, the whole lineup, you know, all four lines and all six D played really good. They made my job a lot easier.”<\/p>\n
Once the organization\u2019s top prospect, Markstrom, who the Panthers selected in the second round (31st overall) of the 2008 NHL Draft, has seen his career come full circle.<\/p>\n
Initially traded by the Panthers to the Vancouver Canucks in 2013, the Gavle, Sweden native went on to also man the pipes for the Calgary Flames and New Jersey Devils.<\/p>\n
This past summer, the Panthers reacquired him from New Jersey.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuper stoked, super excited, that I am (back),\u201d Markstrom said not long after the trade went down in July. \u201cIt\u2019s a crazy business. But the same way I didn\u2019t think I was going to get traded 12 years ago or however long it was, I didn\u2019t think I was going to get traded back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now back where it all began, Markstrom had a vintage performance in Raleigh.<\/p>\n
In addition to recording his sixth career win in a season-opening game, Markstrom also became the fourth-oldest goalie in NHL history to post a shutout in a season opener.<\/p>\n
Of his 15 saves, four were considered high-danger by NaturalStatTrick.com.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe felt very calm back there,\u201d said defenseman Gustav Forsling, who scored the game-winning goal with only 4.3 seconds remaining in overtime. \u201cHe made some unbelievable saves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Markstrom\u2019s biggest stop of the game came just past the midway point of the second period when he denied Hurricanes star center Sebastian Aho on a shorthanded breakaway.<\/p>\n
Trying to go five-hole, Aho came up empty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH, N.C. \u2013 It\u2019s been a minute for Jacob Markstrom. Making his first start for the Florida Panthers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-414397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414397","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=414397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}