After ‘a little reset,’ Panthers set to resume season with home game against Rangers
From the moment they got on the ice Sunday, the energy level was palpable.
“It’s almost like the first day of school all over again,” forward Ryan Lomberg said.
The Florida Panthers were apart for nine days, a hiatus first caused by a COVID-19 outbreak inside the organization and then extended after the NHL instituted a league-wide shutout for five days.
But the light at the end of the tunnel is here.
The Panthers (18-7-4) are set to resume their season at 7 p.m. Wednesday when they host the New York Islanders at FLA Live Arena to start a four-game homestand that continues Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Saturday against the Montreal Canadiens before ending Tuesday against the Calgary Flames.
It’s Florida’s first game since Dec. 16, a 4-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings in which they had seven players in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols, had to call up four players from their American Hockey Affiliate in Charlotte the day of the game and dressed just 16 skaters (11 forwards and five defensemen, one below the usual for each position group).
Fast forward to today, and the Panthers are as close to full strength as they have been in a while.
Only two players are in COVID-19 protocols: Forward Jonathan Huberdeau and defenseman Olli Juolevi.
Aleksander Barkov is set to come off injured reserve and play Wednesday after being active just once in the last 13 games.
More forward depth could come with the looming returns of Mason Marchment and Maxim Mamin, giving interim coach Andrew Brunette options with the 12 forwards to dress on game day.
“We have numbers,” Brunette said. “We’re kind of trending in the right direction I hope, and we’re just trying to piece things together every day.
“I’m hoping we went through the hardest part of it.”
The new hard part for Brunette: Getting the Panthers back to their winning ways from the start of the season while maneuvering the uncertainties that can pop up due to the virus on a daily basis.
At the time of the pause, the Panthers had lost four of their previous five games, picking up just three of a possible 10 points in the process.
Injuries and players being out due to COVID-19 protocols played a part in that, but Florida knows it needs to get back to fundamentals as well.
“A little reset,” defenseman MacKenzie Weegar called it.
And it’s just the latest reset this team has had to go through.
The Panthers have already dealt with a coaching change, with Joel Quenneville resigning seven games into the season over his role in the mishandling of a 2010 sexual assault allegation made by a former player against an assistant coach while Quenneville was the head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks.
And then they went six weeks without their captain, Barkov, for all but one game due to two separate injuries.
And then the COVID-19 outbreak.
“It hasn’t been easy at times,” Weegar said. “We’ve gone through our ups and downs.”
They have responded each time.
Wednesday is their next chance to do that.
“I was walking through the locker room and you can feel some excitement that we’re back playing,” Brunette said. “It was a long break. It was a little bizarre. Those breaks are always tricky. ... It’s tough games ahead of us.”
This and that
▪ Sergei Bobrovsky will be the Panthers’ starting goaltender against the Rangers on Wednesday.
▪ Florida spent the early and late portions of practice working on the power play, arguably the team’s biggest weakness. The Panthers entered the NHL’s pause ranked 25th with a 16.8-percent success rate on the power play.
This story was originally published December 28, 2021 at 1:45 PM.
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