{"id":435422,"date":"2026-10-23T00:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T00:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/435422\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T00:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T00:38:13","slug":"florida-panthers-rookie-goalie-cooper-black-all-6-feet-9-of-him-makes-nhl-history-in-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/435422\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Panthers rookie goalie Cooper Black \u2014 all 6-feet-9 of him \u2014 makes NHL history in debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 Florida Panthers<\/a> goalie Cooper Black<\/a> skated onto the PPG Paints Arena ice alone during pregame warmups on Thursday night, a time-honored hockey tradition given to rookies everywhere.<\/p>\n

It took Black fewer strides to make the memorable lap than most.<\/p>\n

Call it one of the upsides of being 6-foot-9.<\/p>\n

Black made NHL<\/a> history in his first career start when he became the tallest goaltender to ever appear in a regular-season game. Black is listed as two inches taller than Ben Bishop, Ivan Fedotov, Mads Sogaard<\/a> and Mikko Koskinen, all 6-foot-7. <\/p>\n

The 25-year-old from Alpen, Michigan, who started playing when he was 8 and had a 5-inch growth spurt between his junior and senior years in high school when he shot up from 6 feet to 6 feet 5 inches and kept right on going, was excellent in his first period.<\/p>\n

Black, called up from Florida’s AHL affiliate in Charlotte recently after Jacob Markstrom<\/a> went down with a shoulder injury, stopped Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> defenseman Kris Letang<\/a> with his blocker pad on a wrist shot about two minutes in. He also turned aside a breakaway opportunity by Penguins forward Rickard Rakell<\/a> before giving up a goal to Nick Robertson<\/a>, who beat Black to the glove side.<\/p>\n

Panthers head coach Paul Maurice praised Black’s development in recent years. Florida signed Black as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2024. Black blossomed last season in Charlotte, posting a 25-13-4 record with a 2.47 goals against average and a .903 save percentage.<\/p>\n

\u201cA man that size, it takes a long time to grow into that body,\u201d Maurice said before adding with a laugh, \u201cI think he\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full NHL coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 Florida Panthers goalie Cooper Black skated onto the PPG Paints Arena ice alone during pregame…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[170482,28,30,29,16995,135914,98445,170483,53658,170484,15952,98424],"class_list":["post-435422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-cooper-black","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-panthers","tag-jacob-markstrom","tag-kris-letang","tag-mads-sogaard","tag-national-hockey-league","tag-nick-robertson","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-rickard-rakell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435422","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=435422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}