Florida Panthers rookie defenseman Aaron Ekblad was paired alongside Willie Mitchell for his first NHL intrasquad game, and found himself in awe of the team's most seasoned rearguard.

"I was looking over at him every once in a while to see how good his gaps were and where he was on the ice to pick up some tricks," Ekblad said via the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

"He said he was going about 60 percent today and I thought he was a superstar."

While "superstar" and "Willie Mitchell" have been just sparingly uttered in the same sentence, the impressionable 18-year-old didn't see a product of the Los Angeles Kings' defensive factory in the OHL last season.