Ekblad admits Panthers ‘distraught’ following Quenneville’s resignation

Like many other, Florida Panthers’ Aaron Ekblad watched former Chicago Blackhawks prospect Kyle Beach in tears, revealing himself as Brad Aldrich’s victim in the 2010 sex scandal on TSN with Rick Westhead.

On Thursday, Joel Quenneville resigned as coach of the Panthers after he was among those implicated for not swiftly responding to allegations by Beach of being sexually assaulted by Aldrich during the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs. In the Jenner & Block report that was released, it was said that Quenneville did not want to deal with this issue because they were contending to be Cup winners. Bowman told investigators that during this meeting McDonagh and Quenneville “made comments about the challenge of getting to the Stanley Cup Finals and a desire to focus on the team and the playoffs.” To make things worse, Quenneville wrote an evaluation on Aldrich, knowing what he had done, stating that he had done a great job while having several people relying on him.

Andrew Brunette — an assistant coach under Quenneville in Florida — was named team’s interim coach, and is expected to make his debut when the unbeaten Panthers play the Red Wings at Detroit tonight. Brunette has never been a head coach.

But this all seems to matter very little to Ekblad, who like teammate Jonathan Huberdeau, considers his team his family and only want the best for all hockey players out there. However, the star defenseman had to admit that the team was distraught, adding that he needed to gather his emotions, per Erin Brown.

“I’m just really sad for (Kyle). … It’s a terrible situation. I couldn’t imagine being in that situation.”

“It’s been a crazy few days. … We’re a team that’s a bit distraught right now, but we’ve got to come together.”

“We’re all humans here. … There are things that are more important than hockey.”

Nothing was said about Quenneville resigning, though you have to imagine this is what is hard to swallow for players under him, to accept he could have place success above players’ well-being during his career.

With their 7-0-0 record, the Panthers are off to their best start in the franchise history, and could become the Stanley Cup contender that Quenneville was hired in 2019 to build.

But without Quenneville.