By the Numbers: Panthers Prospects Win Big at World Juniors

The Florida Panthers stole the show at the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship.
Gold? Check.
Silver? Check.
Bronze? Check.
Not a bad haul, eh?

With five of the organization's prospects invited to compete at the annual international U20 tournament, four of them are heading home with medals around their necks: Spencer Knight (United States), Devon Levi (Canada), Anton Lundell (Finland) and Kasper Puutio (Finland).
Taken by the Panthers with the 13th overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft, Knight stopped all 34 shots he faced in the gold-medal game to lead USA to a 2-0 win over Canada. Across the ice, Levi, a seventh-round pick in 2020, made 19 saves to end his incredible run with a silver medal.
A longshot to even make Canada's roster only a few months ago, Levi was named the top goaltender at the tournament after posting some amazing numbers (we'll get to that soon).
Before the championship got underway, Lundell, who was scooped up by Florida with the 12th overall pick in 2020, scored two goals as he and Puutio, a fifth-round pick in that same draft, helped lift Finland to a 4-1 win over perennial powerhouse Russia in the bronze-medal game.
With plenty of eye-stopping stats to go around, here's some key numbers from the tournament.
0.75:Levi's minuscule goals-against average. So small you might have to squint a bit to see it, that mark of 0.75 stands out as the smallest ever by a starting goaltender at the World Juniors.

1:The number of times two goaltenders drafted by the same organization started against each other in the final of the World Junior Championship. After carefully combing through game logs from every gold-medal game, we can confirm that the Cats made history with Knight and Levi.
3:The number of shutouts for both Knight and Levi at the tournament. Tying the all-time record, no goaltender had compiled that many clean sheets at the World Juniors since Canadian Justin Pogge in 2006. Levi's shutouts were against Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Russia, while Knight blanked the Czech Republic, Sweden and, of course, Canada in the gold-medal game.
5: The total number of goals given up by Levi throughout the entirety of the tournament. Among netminders that started at least two games, none allowed fewer goals less than Levi. Of the seven games he appeared in, the 19-year-old let more than one goal get past him just once. Of those five goals, only two came at 5-on-5.
6:The number of goals scored by Lundell. Finishing behind only Canada's Dylan Cozens (8) and USA's Trevor Zegras (7), the 19-year-old's six goals were the third-most at the World Juniors. Finland's captain, he came up with clutch goals early and often. After beginning the tournament by scoring his team's first goal, he finished it with two more in a win over Russia in the bronze-medal game.

7: The number of games Puutio manned the blue line for Finland. Making his debut at the World Juniors, the young defenseman made steady progress throughout the tournament and never let go of his spot in the lineup. In a 4-3 loss to USA in the semifinals, the 18-year-old dished out two assists and was named Finland's player of the game afterwards for his efforts.
218:53: The shutout streak strung together by Knight and fellow USA goaltender Dustin Wolf. A World Juniors record, the epic streak included three shutout wins over Austria (Wolf), the Czech Republic (Knight) and Sweden (Knight). The streak ended against Slovakia in the quarterfinals.
91: The number of faceoffs won by Lundell. Oh man, was he was demon in the dot. Winning 91 of the 130 draws he took, his 70 percent success rate stood as the third-best mark at the World Juniors. Additionally, his 91 wins paced the tournament and were 18 more than the next skater.
.964: Levi's unbelievable save percentage at the tournament. The best save percentage ever by a goaltender at the World Juniors, Levi surpassed Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price, who posted a .961 save percentage while leading Canada to gold in 2007, to secure the record.
34: The amount of saves Knight made during the gold-medal game. There's no other way to put it: the 19-year-old was a brick wall on the biggest stage. Of his 34 saves, 15 came in the third period when the Canadians outshot the Americans 15-1 in a frantic attempt to get on the board. In the end, he became the first-ever USA goaltender to register a shutout in the medal round.

211: The number of players picked before Levi in the 2020 NHL Draft. The sixth-to-last pick taken in the draft back in October, it's safe to say that this selection is already looking like a steal. And with the Cats recently launching their innovative Goaltending Excellence Department, both him and Knight will be in good hands throughout their development in the years to come.
\Photo by Andrea Leigh Cardin*