The Florida Panthers are expected to be without forward Sam Bennett for the remainder of the regular season as he deals with an upper body injury.
Head coach Paul Maurice said that the current timeline for his return is Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, as the 28 year old has resumed skating with the team. Bennett is one of several Panthers players currently nursing nagging injuries, as he’ll join forward Matthew Tkachuk (out since Feb 8th), and defenceman Dmitry Kulikov (out since Mar 16th) in the press box for the final 5 games of the year.
Captain Aleksander Barkov, forward Sam Reinhart and Gustav Forsling will reportedly be back in the lineup after missing time for the team’s Tuesday contest with Toronto. Though it appears as though Nico Sturm may need some extra time.
Per Jameson Olive, the Panthers iced the following lineup combinations at their morning skate on Tuesday:
Verhaeghe – Barkov – Reinhart
Luostarinen – Lundell – Marchand
Puljujarvi – Rodrigues – Samoskevich
Greer – Nosek – Gadjovich
Extra: Bennett, Sturm, Asplund
Mikkola – Jones
Forsling – Schmidt
Megna – Balinskis
Extra: Kiersted , Kulikov
The former 4th overall selection from the 2014 NHL entry draft has 25 goals and 25 assists for 50 points and 88 penalty minutes in 74 regular-season games this season. Both his points total, and assists total represent career highs for the Holland Landing, ON native.
Losers of 5 straight, and 3-6-1 over their last 10, Florida has fallen out of the top spot in the Atlantic Division, and now occupy third place with 92 points (44-29-4), 2 points ahead of the Ottawa Senators who hold the 1st wildcard spot.
Because of the team’s seeming willingness to rest their players, some have begun to speculate that the team is perhaps “tanking” to draw a match up with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round as opposed to their in state rivals, the Tampa Bay Lightning.
That line of thinking however has been quickly shutdown by those surrounding the team, as their mantra has been “full health” over the past few weeks. Having gone to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2023, and then winning it all last year, the Panthers are acutely aware of the upcoming grind that is the NHL postseason.
Evidently they’re taking no chances in rushing their players back to the lineup until they are at 100% health, and aren’t overly concerned about where that ultimately puts them in the Eastern Conference standings.
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