FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers are now dealing with even more injuries, including one sustained in a grilling accident.
And coach Paul Maurice, when looking at the big picture, is seeing all of this as a way for the champs to get even better.
Forward Eetu Luostarinen will be listed as week to week, Maurice said Wednesday, with what he described as “a barbequing mishap.” But the already-shorthanded Panthers don’t seem to have a concrete timeline in mind for Luostarinen’s return.
“We don’t have a lot of experience with this,” Maurice said. “When he comes back and feels comfortable with the equipment on him, away we go.”
And forward Cole Schwindt, who the Panthers claimed off waivers last month to help with their injury problems, is now on the injury list himself. Schwindt will need surgery in the coming days to repair a broken arm and the Panthers expect that he’ll miss 2-3 months.
Luostarinen and Schwindt become the latest entries on an injury log for the Panthers that already included long-term issues for captain Aleksander Barkov (preseason ACL tear), Dmitry Kulikov (upper body), Jonah Gadjovich (upper body), Tomas Nosek (knee) and Matthew Tkachuk (groin). Barkov, Kulikov, Gadjovich and Nosek all still have months to go in their recoveries; Tkachuk may start skating by the end of this month and could make his season debut sometime in December.
It is not at all what the Panthers expected to start the season. But that’s where Maurice sees opportunity; the roster depletions have forced Florida to change its playing style somewhat, and he thinks that could wind up providing valuable lessons.
“There’s an awful lot of good if you can capture, if you can learn some new things, things that you have to learn to survive,” Maurice said. “And that’s really in some ways what we’re doing, is trying to survive. When you get to seven guys out of your lineup, you’ve got a problem. We can survive that and then learn through the adversity of it eventually.
“We’re going to have, slightly after the trade deadline, the biggest movement in the league,” he added. “We’re going to get some players back. We can be a better team than we were going into the playoffs last year, if we can learn how to do this. It’s just going to be hard. It’s going to be uncomfortable right now. And we’ve got to be good with that.”
The Panthers expect that rookie forward Jack Devine, part of two NCAA title teams at Denver and twice a Hobey Baker Award finalist before turning pro last year, will make his NHL debut on Thursday in a home game against New Jersey.
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