Florida Panthers Get Re-Adjusted After Long Finland Trip

The Florida Panthers returned to the ice for a quick practice on Monday to get re-adjusted to North American soil before they return to the ice for game action on Thursday.

After a nine-hour flight home from Finland, the Florida Panthers have the better part of the week to get themselves re-situated before they return to action against the Nashville Predators on Thursday.

And they are going to need every bit of it.

Florida held an optional practice on Monday morning less than 24 hours after landing back in Fort Lauderdale and a large majority of the team took the opportunity to get some work in before a scheduled off day on Tuesday.

At the time they got on the ice and coach Paul Maurice went up to the podium for his daily media availability, it was 5:40 a.m. back in Helsinki.

“Yeah,” Maurice said, at 10:30 a.m. local time on Monday. “It feels like it.”

Once the Panthers make use of their four-day re-adjustment period, they will play their first home game in over two weeks.

“Some road trips get to feel really long and it’s almost monotony,” Maurice said. “This one was just long because of the mental change from here to Europe to all of it. The saunas, the spectacle of it, it felt like it was another month, another year. It felt so disconnected. The back half of that trip was completely disconnected from the front half, but our game was pretty good through it.”

A reunion with their home crowd will be a welcome one after a 5-0-0 road trip through the state of New York and a two-game set in Tampere, Finland with the Dallas Stars.

“Yeah, we’re looking forward to it,” coach Paul Maurice. “It was really unusual that we start on the road for three but I think I liked it better because I shortened our window between games, which helped us, and then coming back west is always easier than going from Europe.

“So, I think we were alrght. We got up and down the ice today just to kind of get them back on our time. Try to get their rhythm back to when yoy go to bed and get up at a reasonable hour. But they moved pretty well.”

Every Panthers skater, save for Sam Bennett participated in Monday morning’s practice. That included Jonah Gadjovich, who has missed the past few games with back spasms.

Florida will have — at least pretty close to — all options available when they return to the ice on Thursday, thanks to the returns of Aleksander Barkov and Tomas Nosek on that road trip.

Nosek helped make the difference in their 4-2 win on Saturday, kicking over the game-winning goal off the face-off to A.J. Greer while playing a role on the penalty kill.

“Well, the difference is the last game, the game winning goal,” Maurice said. “Last game, the fourth line is taking a face-off in the offensive zone, and you want them on the ice. It’s only two games and we like them, we think that would be a compliment to that line as well, but thee is a chemsitry between Greer and Nosek because they played together before [with the Boston Bruins.]

“That’s evidence, and even two games in, they’re moving off each other the right way. That gives us a depth of centers, and we found a way to survive with two centermen out of your lineup.”