Florida Panthers shut down through Christmas as team deals with COVID-19 outbreak
The Florida Panthers are being shut down for the immediate future as the team deals with a rash of COVID-19 cases.
The NHL is postponing the Panthers’ next three games — Saturday at the Minnesota Wild, Tuesday at the Chicago Blackhawks and Thursday at home against the Nashville Predators. Make-up dates for those games have not yet been announced. Florida’s next scheduled game is now Dec. 27 on the road against the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Calgary Flames and Colorado Avalanche, both dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks of their own, have also had their season put on hold through Christmas.
The Panthers situation is a rough one. They have seven players in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols. That group includes forwards Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe, Frank Vatrano and Ryan Lomberg as well as defensemen Aaron Ekblad, Radko Gudas and Brandon Montour.
With that group unavailable in addition to Aleksander Barkov being on injured reserve, the Panthers are playing without five of their nine players who have scored at least six goals, three of their top six forwards and half of their main defenseman group, including both defensemen who are typically on the power play.
In addition to them, starting goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was not on the ice during the Panthers’ hour-long practice Friday at the IceDen in Coral Springs.
Interim coach Andrew Brunette said Bobrovsky “wasn’t feeling great this morning, so we kept him off the ice.”
Bobrovsky has started 19 of the Panthers’ 29 games. He’s 12-3-2 in net with a .917 save percentage and 2.47 goals against average — both on pace for his best single-season marks since the 2017-2018 season.
“We’re just trying to piece together some things here,” Brunette said.
With Bobrovsky’s status up in the air — Brunette was non-committal about if Bobrovsky would have traveled — Jonas Johansson would be the Panthers’ top goaltender for the moment. Florida claimed him off waivers Monday from the Colorado Avalanche, and he is now serving as Bobrovsky’s backup. The Panthers sent Spencer Knight to the Charlotte Checkers, their American Hockey League affiliate, on Thursday — a move that gave the Panthers enough cap flexibility to call up prospects to fill their roster.
“We haven’t really sat back and talked about it,” Brunette said about the potential of Johansson starting. “Everything kind of happened really fast this morning, and we’re just trying to get through practice.”
Johansson, 26, played nine games (six starts) for the Avalanche before being waived. He is 3-2-1 on the season with an .885 save percentage and a 3.73 goals against average.
His career stats are slightly better: a 9-11-4 with a .893 save percentage and a 3.09 goals against average over 30 games (24 starts).
Johansson said he has spent the last couple days working with Panthers goaltending coach Robb Tallas and Roberto Luongo, who is overseeing the Panthers’ goaltending excellence department that the team started in December 2020.
“Whenever I get to play,” Johansson said, “I’m just very excited.”
And Johansson would be just the latest player to get an opportunity to help a short-handed Panthers roster.
Florida called up four players — forwards Cole Schwindt and Grigori Denisenko, defensemen Matt Kiersted and Chase Priskie — from the Checkers to help alleviate some of the losses.
Even with the addition of that quartet, the Panthers still had to play shorthanded — they were only able to dress 11 forwards and five defensemen — in their 4-1 to the Los Angeles Kings.
The end result was not what the Panthers wanted — Florida has now lost three consecutive games in regulation for the first time this season — but Brunette still liked what he saw from the four new players called into action.
Priskie logged 25:29 of ice time. Kiersted scored his first NHL goal. Schwindt made his NHL debut. Denisenko was primarily the left wing on Florida’s second line with Anton Lundell at center and Owen Tippett at right wing.
“I thought they brought a lot,” Brunette said. “They played extremely well for us. I was really happy for them. It was a great opportunity and they stepped in.”
They’ll most likely be getting more chances, too. Brunette said he anticipates he’ll be working with more or less the same roster until players test out of COVID protocols.
It looks like the only potential addition the Panthers can bring to the group is defenseman Gustav Forsling, who had missed the last two games with a non-COVID illness but was a full participant in practice on Friday.
“We’re kind of running out of guys,” Brunette said, “so probably this is what we’ve got. If we battle and compete like that, things will work out.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2021 at 12:42 PM.
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