{"id":548684,"date":"2026-04-09T11:27:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/548684\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:27:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:27:24","slug":"another-nhl-debut-florida-panthers-call-up-rookie-defenseman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/548684\/","title":{"rendered":"Another NHL Debut? Florida Panthers Call Up Rookie Defenseman"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida Panthers have had quite a few of their youngsters get their first taste of the NHL and, tonight in Ottawa, may have a fifth take that solo lap before making their debut.<\/p>\n

With Dmitry Kulikov out for the third time this season<\/a> after breaking a finger on Tuesday, the Panthers called up Mikulas Hovorka on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Hovorka, you may remember, made his NHL debut with the Panthers on Feb. 8 in Tampa and has since played in three games.<\/p>\n

But the Panthers called up a second d-man as well.<\/p>\n

Ludvig Jansson, a 22-year-old who was a fourth-round draft pick by the Panthers in 2022, could make his NHL debut tonight after being called up from AHL Charlotte.<\/p>\n

If he were to play, Jansson would join Sandis Vilmanis, Mike Benning, Jack Devine, and Hovorka in making their NHL debut with the Panthers this season.<\/p>\n

With four games left, perhaps more are coming.<\/p>\n

Aside from Kulikov, everyone finished Tuesday\u2019s 4-3 shootout loss to the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> so, right now, it is not known who would sit to allow Jansson to play.<\/p>\n

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It might be Jansson replacing Kulikov in the lineup and not Hovorka, or, coach Paul Maurice has plans to sit someone else \u2014 perhaps a veteran such as Gus Forsling or Seth Jones.<\/p>\n

Jansson is in his first North American pro season, scoring three goals with 10 points in 29 games for the Checkers.<\/p>\n

ON DECK: GAME No. 79FLORIDA PANTHERS at OTTAWA SENATORS<\/p>\n

Where:\u00a0Canada Tire Center, Ottawa<\/p>\n

Radio:\u00a0WQAM; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM<\/p>\n

Panthers Radio Streaming:\u00a0SiriusXM 932, NHL App<\/p>\n

Last Season:\u00a0Senators won 2-1<\/p>\n

Up Next for the Panthers:\u00a0Saturday at Toronto Maple Leafs, 7<\/p>\n

This article: Another NHL Debut? Florida Panthers Call Up Rookie Defenseman<\/a> originally appeared on Florida Hockey Now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers have had quite a few of their youngsters get their first taste of the NHL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[257,62,57,5141,5,5018,14650,61501,4,72,25,63,259,31],"class_list":{"0":"post-548684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-dmitry-kulikov","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-panthers","11":"tag-floridapanthers","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-ludvig-jansson","14":"tag-mike-benning","15":"tag-mikulas-hovorka","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-ottawa","18":"tag-ottawa-senators","19":"tag-panthers","20":"tag-seth-jones","21":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116374512819551698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}