Florida Panthers Announce 2024-25 Opening Night Roster

FORT LAUDERDALE — With the 2024-25 NHL regular season officially starting on Tuesday, all teams had to submit their finalized, 23-man opening night rosters by 5 p.m. EST on Monday.

The defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers will be carrying 13 forwards, seven defensemen and two goaltenders into their first game of the season — which is still set to be played on Oct. 8 against the Boston Bruins, despite Hurricane Milton making its way to the Florida coast this week.

15 members from the 2024 Stanley Cup winning team were included on the Panthers opening night roster.

Full Roster 

Forwards: Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk, Evan Rodrigues, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen, Mackie Samoskevich, Jonah Gadjovich, AJ Greer, Jesper Boqvist, MacKenzie Entwistle

IR: Tomas Nosek, Justin Sourdif (season opening IR)

Defensemen: Gustav Forsling, Aaron Ekblad, Niko Mikkola, Dmitry Kulikov, Uvis Balinskis, Adam Boqvist, Nate Schmidt

Goalies: Sergei Bobrovsky, Chris Driedger

NOTES

Forward Justin Sourdif was placed on season opening IR and Tomas Nosek was placed on IR.

23-year-old goaltender Spencer Knight was not on the opening night roster. He spent all of the 2023-24 season in the AHL with the Charlotte Checkers and was expected to be the team’s backup. Knight is waiver exempt, so there’s a real possibility that his omission was a temporary one due to salary cap restraints.

After being hurt for the majority of camp and only appearing in one preseason game, 21-year-old forward Mackie Samoskevich made the team out of camp for a second straight season.