Panthers injury updates on Bennett, Lundell, Marchand ahead of Bruins game
Monday night was a first for Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice.
In his 28 years as an NHL head coach, never had Maurice been part of a game where all four projected centers for his Opening Night lineup were sidelined in the same game.
He can cross that off his list now.
When Sam Bennett left Florida’s eventual 5-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres after the first period with an upper-body injury, Maurice was officially playing without each of his main four centers. The Panthers had already played all season without captain and top-line center Aleksander Barkov and fourth-line center Tomas Nosek as they each recover from knee surgeries — Barkov’s happening the first week of training camp, Nosek’s before camp began.
Anton Lundell, who normally handles Florida’s third line but has been on the top two lines all season, has missed the past three games with an upper-body injury.
And then Bennett, who has been Florida’s second-line center the past four years, was sidelined.
“It was a new challenge,” Maurice said.
And fortunately one Florida won’t have to deal with again in the immediate future.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice said after the team’s morning skate on Wednesday that Bennett will return to the lineup for their home game against the Boston Bruins and that Lundell is probable for the game.
(Veteran winger Brad Marchand, meanwhile, will miss his third consecutive game and 10th in 14 games due to undisclosed injuries).
It’s a needed boost for a team that has been dealing with injuries all season.
And it comes at a needed time, with Florida entering the game trailing the Bruins by nine points for the Eastern Conference’s final wild card spot with 27 games left to play.
Even with Bennett and Lundell all but set to return, the team still has six players from its Stanley Cup playoff run last season sidelined in Barkov, Marchand, Nosek, forward Jonah Gadjovich and defensemen Seth Jones and Dmitry Kulikov.
“Everybody’s excited in the room,” Maurice said, “because we’ve only got six guys out tonight. Hey, it was eight, so we’re taking it. We’re feeling good. If we can get that number under five at some point, I think we have a powerful enough team and we would then have a motivation and a spirit maybe that we’ve been searching for all year. It’s just tough when you have so many dominant players out of the lineup.”
But Florida has done its best to deal with the situation. Several players have stepped up in roles they either aren’t accustomed to playing or hadn’t had the chance to play just yet in their careers.
Evan Rodrigues moved from the wing to center at the start of the season and has been a steadying presence there. Eetu Luostarinen has had to slide back to center ice a few times in the middle of games when players got hurt. Cole Schwindt, in his first extended look in the NHL, has shown he can be a steady player in a bottom-six forward role.
“They play their butts off, and they play great,” Maurice said. “So I maybe downplayed the importance of having some of these people out of our lineup because we’ve got guys in our lineup that have given everything possibly could.”
They’ll need that to remain the case even as the team gets healthy to stay in the mix for a playoff spot.
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