FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2013 The injury bug is back.<\/p>\n
After enjoying a brief moment of a fairly healthy lineup, the Florida Panthers are once again dealing with a slew of injuries as they prepare to head down the home stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t wrap these guys in bubble wrap,\u201d head coach Paul Maurice said.<\/p>\n
So far, the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions have lost 400-plus man games to injury this season.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Maurice provided updates on several key players.<\/p>\n
Niko Mikkola<\/p>\n
The news on Mikkola was better than expected.<\/p>\n
After suffering a lower-body injury during a scary knee-on-knee collision with Flames forward Ryan Strome during the third period of Friday\u2019s 4-1 loss at Calgary, the Panthers blueliner thankfully won\u2019t need surgery and should be able to go through his offseason as planned.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will be out weeks instead of months,\u201d Maurice said. \u201c[It\u2019s a] 4-6 week rehab.\u201d<\/p>\n
Based on how bad the injury looked, that\u2019s the best outcome anyone could\u2019ve hoped for.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really relieved on that,\u201d Maurice said.<\/p>\n
In 68 games, Mikkola had logged 11 points (3G, 8A), 116 hits and 81 blocked shots.<\/p>\n
Next season will be the first year of his eight-year extension signed in October.<\/p>\n
Sam Reinhart<\/p>\n
Reinhart\u2019s immediate future remains cloudy.<\/p>\n
After staying behind during Florida\u2019s recent four-game road trip, the star forward\u2019s availability for Tuesday\u2019s game against the Seattle Kraken doesn\u2019t sound promising.<\/p>\n
“He’s testing tomorrow,\u201d Maurice said. \u201cMore tests tomorrow.”<\/p>\n
With a lot of miles on his tires, Reinhart\u2019s injury isn\u2019t easy to pinpoint.<\/p>\n
“It’s more than one thing he’s been dealing with,” Maurice said last week.<\/p>\n
Suiting up in 64 games, Reinhart still stands as Florida\u2019s leader in goals (29) and points (61).<\/p>\n
Uvis Balinskis<\/p>\n
Balinskis has been sidelined by a lower-body injury for the past five games.<\/p>\n
Now, we know why.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe does have a fracture in his foot,\u201d Maurice said.<\/p>\n
In terms of a timeline, Balinskis should follow Mikkola\u2019s recovery of 4-6 weeks.<\/p>\n
In 54 games this season, the Latvian defenseman has notched 15 points (5G, 10A).<\/p>\n
Seeing an elevated role, his 16:22 of time on ice per game is a career best.<\/p>\n
Mackie Samoskevich<\/p>\n
After missing the loss at Calgary, it was revealed that Samoskevich suffered a \u201cpretty good laceration\u201d from a skate blade roughly 24 hours earlier in Thursday\u2019s win at Edmonton.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s 7-10 days before he\u2019s back,\u201d Maurice said.<\/p>\n
In 66 games this season, Samoskevich has posted 23 points (6G, 17A).<\/p>\n
An underrated stat, he also ranks second on Florida with 25 penalties drawn.<\/p>\n
Brad Marchand<\/p>\n
Hampered by an undisclosed injury for some time, Marchand last played on March 6.<\/p>\n
Over the past few weeks, the veteran forward has been visiting doctors to both assess his injury and plan how the road ahead should be handled to get him back to 100%.<\/p>\n
That initial testing now appears to be done.<\/p>\n
“Marchy had his tests, sent them to the doctor, and now he’s doing a doctor tour,\u201d Maurice said. \u201cWe’ll get an idea of how we’re going to rehab that hopefully in the next 10 days.”<\/p>\n
Over a point-per-game player, Marchand has registered 54 points (27G, 27A) in 52 games this season.<\/p>\n
Anton Lundell<\/p>\n
Lundell was listed as \u201cbanged up\u201d and did not take the ice on Friday in Calgary.<\/p>\n
While his status for Tuesday\u2019s tilt with the Kraken remains up in the air, Lundell is closer to returning than some of his other teammates as his injury isn\u2019t considered severe.<\/p>\n
As of Monday, he\u2019s yet to resume skating.<\/p>\n
“We’ll list him as day to day,\u201d Maurice said. \u201cHe’s not good enough to be on the ice yet. He’s getting looked at. We don’t think there’s much there, but he’s not ready to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 64 games, Lundell has posted 44 points (18G, 26A) and won a team-high 580 faceoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2013 The injury bug is back. After enjoying a brief moment of a fairly healthy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-203534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}