from Ken Campbell of The Hockey News,

As the Florida Panthers were burning their way through the playoffs last spring, Spencer Knight would say the same thing to anyone who inquired about the reason for their unlikely trip to the Stanley Cup final.

“I told people it was because they got rid of a lot of the dead weight,” Knight joked.

As the Florida Panthers approach Day 1 of training camp on Thursday, their backup goalie will be back with them for the first time since he left the team to enroll in the NHL/NHL Players’ Association player assistance program in late February. While the Panthers were rallying to make the playoffs and shocking the hockey world with their inspiring run, Knight was at his parents’ home in Darien, Conn., dealing with an ongoing case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that made it impossible to continue playing in the NHL.

In a one-hour interview with The Hockey News for an in-depth story for the upcoming Goalie Issue, Knight talked about what led him to seek the help of the players’ assistance program and how he has come out the other side with a renewed perspective on both his life and his career.

“I was spiralling in a direction I didn’t want to be going,” Knight said.

Knight said all of it started in 2019 when he was a freshman at Boston College. For reasons he can’t explain, he started excessively washing his hands. The trips to the washroom to run his hands under the tap increased to the point where he talked to his parents about it after that season and thought he might need some help. But it never really hampered his ability to function.

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