Like many before him, veteran Nate Schmidt enjoying resurgence with Florida Panthers

In recent years, it’s become a constant thing to see NHL players come to South Florida and have their careers receive a positive bump.

Whether still with the team or not, several names quickly come to mind.

Sam Bennett, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Brandon Montour, Kevin Stenlund, Anthony Stolarz, Sam Reinhart, Ryan Lomberg…the list goes on.

This season, due to the success of some of the aforementioned Panthers, Florida once again had to replenish its depth ranks with players that would, ideally, help to maintain the status quo on a team that just made consecutive trips to the Stanley Cup Final.

While the season has still yet to reach the quarter pole, it appears that, once again, the Panthers did a solid job with finding players who would fit in with their systems.

Florida has been getting steady and solid contributions from newcomers Jesper Boqvist, A.J. Greer and Tomas Nosek up front, and from Adam Boqvist and Nate Schimdt on the back end.

For Schmidt, a 12-year veteran of the NHL who has seen his level of play and production diminish in recent years, there was hope that the Panthers could do for him what it had done for others in a similar situation, most recently Ekman-Larsson.

While he began the season as a healthy scratch, Schmidt has put in the work and found a steady role with Florida’s defensemen.

This hasn’t surprised Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice, who has had a front row seat to the process of players adjusting their games after arriving in South Florida.

“I think there’s a big curve for players coming in, and sometimes the curve is longer for older players,” Maurice said. “They have ingrained habits, or they have played in a system for a while that’s completely different than ours, so it takes them a while to get it. I think it did, but (Schmidt is) a smart player, and we feel he’s more suited to play our game than possibly what he’s been doing recently. He’s made good improvements here.”

After just 15 games in a Panthers sweater, Schmidt is already on pace for a more productive season than he’s had in several years, logging two goals and five points so far with the Cats.

Perhaps more importantly, his defensive metrics and possession numbers have been some of the best of his career.

Yes, the sample size is still, but it’s a familiar trend.

Maurice points to Florida’s behind the scenes crew for knowing exactly what to look for, recognizing the right kind of skillset and mental makeup and bringing the proper information to the people who make the final deicsions.

“I think it’s really, really good pro scouting,” he said. “I think management and our pro scouts do an excellent job of identifying guys that can come here and be successful. We also feel that the ornaments look pretty good on the tree. We got a pretty good tree here. We can hang the ornaments in different spots, and they can look good.”

A Christmas metaphor?

Maurice quickly caught himself and remembered we’ve yet to reach Thanksgiving yet.

“That was a reach,” he said. “Mid-November. Four weeks from now, that’d be good.”

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