{"id":548705,"date":"2026-04-09T12:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/548705\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T12:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:06:18","slug":"another-nhl-debut-florida-panthers-call-up-rookie-defenseman-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/548705\/","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

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

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<\/p>\n

ON DECK: GAME No. 79<\/p>\n

FLORIDA PANTHERS at OTTAWA SENATORS\u00a0<\/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":548706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[257,57,5,5018,61501,4,15466,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-548705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-dmitry-kulikov","9":"tag-florida-panthers","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-ludvig-jansson","12":"tag-mikulas-hovorka","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-nhl-debut","15":"tag-ottawa-senators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116374666201371087","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548705","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=548705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}