Panthers Pulse: Chris Driedger Returns to Florida After Injuries Plague Seattle Tenure

Chris Driedger returns to the Florida Panthers after injuries plagued what should have been a breakout tenure with the Seattle Kraken. His role may look a bit different this time around.

Photo via Bally Sports

Leading up to the beginning of training camp, Pucks and Palms will be previewing each of the key pieces of the defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers in a series called ‘Panthers Pulse’ heading into the 2024-25 season. Chris Driedger is next.

2023-24 Stats: 1-1-0, .917 SV%, 2.51 GAA (AHL: 24-7-7, .917 SV%, 2.26 GAA)

Three years after leaving the Florida Panthers to become the first player selected by the Seattle Kraken in the 2021 Expansion Draft, Chris Driedger is back in South Florida.

It has been a long and winding road for Driedger since the 2020-21 breakout campaign that saw him go 14-6-3 with a .927 SV% and 2.07 GAA and netted him a three-year contract with a $3.5 million cap hit from Seattle.

And his expectations this go-around might be a bit different.

Driedger missed a large chunk of his first season in Seattle with injury, then sustained a torn ACL in the 2022 World Championship while representing Team Canada which cost him the majority of his 2022-23 season. He finished the season in the AHL with the Coachella Valley Firebirds, where he would spend the large majority of the next two seasons.

He made deep playoff runs in both of his seasons with the Firebirds. He backed up Joey Daccord when Coachella Valley lost to the Hershey Bears in the 2023 Calder Cup Final, then went 12-6-0 with a .906 SV% and a 2.67 GAA before losing to the Bears in the Cup Final again in 2024.

So, what are the expectations for Driedger?

With Anthony Stolarz now with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the back-up goaltending job is up for grabs again. And it is more open for Spencer Knight than it was last year, after he spent the entire season in the AHL.

Like he was in Seattle this season, Driedger could very well serve as a quality organizational third goalie — someone who has made quality NHL starts before and is capable of doing so again.

But a redemption story is in play, too depending on how training camp plays out.

If the Panthers feel like Knight needs a heavier workload of starts at the AHL level, Driedger is more than capable of filling that back-up role. And it will give him a chance to re-assert himself as a quality NHL goalie.

Injuries, as well as the emergence of Daccord, put a damper on Dreidger’s tenure in Seattle, but he is back in a comfortable spot. If he can re-create some of the magic from the 2020-21 season, he could very well earn a payday elsewhere.

And if he’s asked to be the third goalie on the depth chart, he is more than capable of filling that role as well.

Up Next in Panthers Pulse: Jesper Boqvist

Previously: Matthew Tkachuk, Gustav Forsling, Sam Bennett, Evan Rodrigues, Eetu Luostarinen, Uvis Balinskis, Anton Lundell, Sergei Bobrovsky, Spencer Knight, Aleksander Barkov, Adam Boqvist, A.J. Greer, Sam Reinhart, Niko Mikkola, Nate Schmidt, Tobias Bjornfot, Mackie Samoskevich, Jonah Gadjovich, Carter Verhaeghe, Tomas Nosek, Aaron Ekblad, Dmitry Kulikov