2025 Memorial Cup Head-to-Head: Panthers prospects St. Martin and Coughlin duke it out on opening night

Rimouski, Que. – Nearly one year after the Florida Panthers captured their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, a pair of cubs are looking to sink their claws into some hardware of their own.

Panthers prospects Hunter St. Martin and Luke Coughlin have their eyes trained on the 2025 Memorial Cup, as tournament play kicks off on Friday evening.

Instead of repping the Southern Florida brand together, the pair of prospects find themselves on opposing ends of the Sun Life Financial Coliseum.

St. Martin, a product of Edmonton, Alta., is a staple in the Medicine Hat Tigers’ forward cohort, while Coughlin, a Charlottetown, P.E.I., native, is a mainstay on the Rimouski Oceanic’s blueline.

Both prospects’ journey to this season’s Memorial Cup followed different paths, as St. Martin enters as a WHL Champion while Coughlin’s admittance comes as the hosts of the tournament.

While opponents for the season-ending tournament, it’s easy to spot similarities between the Panthers hopefuls.

St. Martin and Coughlin enter the Memorial Cup as four-year veterans at the junior hockey level and have spent their entire careers with the Clubs that originally drafted them.

The pair made their League debuts on the exact same day, taking to the ice with the Tigers and Oceanic, respectively, on October 1, 2021.

This season, the Memorial Cup participants each boasted a career-high in points.

St. Martin registered 59 points (39G-20A) in 65 games, while Coughlin racked-up 24 points (4G-20A) in 54 appearances.

Separated by a single draft year, both St. Martin and Coughlin were sixth-round selections by Florida. The Tabbies forward got the nod with the 193rd-overall selection in 2024 while the Oceanic defender went 191st overall in 2023.

But, with the opportunity to reunite under the same crest in Sunrise, Fla., being months away, the duos focus is set on the opening game of the 2025 Memorial Cup between the WHL Champions, Medicine Hat Tigers, and tournament hosts, Rimouski Oceanic.

TSN will broadcast the match to fans in Canada, while viewers in the United States and around the world can stream the game on the NHL Network and Victory+.

Puck drop is slated for 7:00 p.m. EST on Friday, May 23.