The Panthers are finally giving top prospect Owen Tippett a bigger role. He’s delivering

The Florida Panthers know Owen Tippett has been coming.

The Panthers spent last season weighing a promotion for the right wing, who scored 40 points in 46 games with AHL Springfield (Massachusetts) before a wrist injury cut short his season. They finally gave him a chance ahead of the expanded 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs, inviting him to postseason training camp, only he never got into a game in Toronto. Even this season, Florida has seen flashes — a stretch with three goals in four games in March, another with four points in five games in late March and early April — while moving him in and out of the lineup, and waiting for a true, undeniable breakthrough from the top-100 prospect.

With the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs on the horizon, the Panthers think they finally might be seeing it.

“He has all the ingredients that you need and look for in a power forward, and that consistency is something at this time of the year that you’ve got to expect,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “He’s going to get a great opportunity here.”

Both Quenneville and All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau referred to Tippett’s two-assist outing in Florida’s 5-4, overtime win against the Dallas Stars on Monday referred to it as “his best game of the year.” With a slew of injuries to top-six forwards, Quenneville elevated Tippett to the second line and he has spent the past four games playing there, next to Huberdeau and either center Sam Bennett or Alex Wennberg.

Even with Florida back at full strength for a pair of practices Thursday and Friday at the BB&T Center, Tippett remained with Huberdeau and Bennett on the second line as the Panthers prepare for the Stanley Cup playoffs later this month. He will remain on the second line Saturday when Florida hosts the Tampa Bay Lightning at 7 p.m. in Sunrise for the penultimate game of the regular season, and it’s the place he will almost certainly remain when the Panthers start the postseason later this month.

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There is a chance Bennett won’t be back Saturday, though. He, Carter Verhaeghe and Patric Hornqvist are all recovering from upper-body injuries and ready to return, but Quenneville said he might wait until the regular-season finale against the Lightning on Monday in South Florida, just to give the forwards an extra couple days of rest and recovery.

Goaltender Chris Driedger, who’s also recovering from a lower-body injury, remains on track to start the finale Monday.

“We’ll see on a lineup for tomorrow tomorrow morning,” Quenneville said. “A couple guys might play the last game.”

If the Panthers remain shorthanded, the responsibility will be even greater for Tippett.

Florida began the season as the No. 41 prospect in the NHL and home-ice advantage in a first-round series against Tampa Bay by sweeping the two-game series with at least one regulation win, so the Panthers are trying to balance postseason preparation with actually winning a pair of games with modest stakes.

It’s a balance they have tried to find all throughout the last two weeks, while they’ve opted not to rush their injured forwards back any earlier than necessary, and it presented a major opportunity for Tippett.

Quenneville elevated Tippett to the second line last week, and the rookie has scored two goals and notched three assists in four games since. He’s averaging 14:28 minutes per game — up from his prior season average of 11:07 — and his Corsi For percentage, which measures the percentage of shots taken by a player’s team at 5-on-5 while he’s on the ice, is up to 66.1 from 50.5 in his first 39 games.

“I’m just kind of trying to hold on to the puck a little bit longer instead of rushing plays,” Tippett said Monday. “When you do that, the game slows down.”

It has made for a more complete forward. Tippett, who was the No. 10 overall pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, began the season as the No. 41 prospect in the NHL and No. 4 in the organization, according to ESPN.com, because of a track record as a scorer. He potted 19 goals for the Springfield Thunderbirds last season and immediately slotted in as a third-line winger this year, asked to provide a bottom-six goal-scoring punch and develop a more rounded game to suit his 6-foot-1, 207-pound frame.

As his first full NHL season nears its end, the 22-year-old is finally figuring it out and Quenneville said he “can even think about using him more.”

“When he skates, he’s one of the best players,” Huberdeau said Thursday. “He’s explosive, has a really good shot, obviously, so I think it’s a good fit on our line with Benny working hard and him. Tippy’s just a guy that gets on the pucks and puts it in the back of the net.”