Florida Panthers to Lean on Forward Depth With Tkachuk on LTIR — For Now

The Florida Panthers will lean on their forward depth heavily with Matthew Tkachuk on long-term injured reserve and their big trade deadline splash coming on the blue line. At least for now.

SUNRISE, Fla. — When the Florida Panthers returned from the.4 Nations Face-Off break without star forward Matthew Tkachuk, coach Paul Maurice said that his depth was going to be tested down the stretch.

That is even moreso the case — at least for now — with Tkachuk making the move to long-term injured reserve.

Florida will be without Tkachuk until at least March 20, and potentially longer than that. There is the chance the Panthers could use the $8.7 million created by placing Tkachuk to LTIR add to their forward group at the deadline, which would keep the two-time All-Star out until the start of the playoffs.

The Panthers made their big trade deadline splash on Saturday, acquiring Seth Jones to bolster up their blue line. It remains to be seen if they decide to add to the forward group they have now or potentially try to bring Tkachuk back during the regular season.

Regardless, Florida has fared well in their first four games without Tkachuk, going 3-1-0 with 11 different players scoring a goal and 17 different players recording a point.

“They’ve handled it very, very well,” Maurice said. “This block after the break — and it’s a little bit unusual this year because there are so many teams in the playoff [race,] certainly in the East — it’s going to be playoff kind of games.

“So, it’s not necessarily going to be the [Aleksander] Barkovs putting it in every night. It’s a puck around the net, it’s kind of the hard goals and teams will check each other. The guys who don’t necessarily put up a lot of points will become critical for everybody.”

Over the past four games, that has certainly been the case for the Panthers.

Florida’s top line of Barkov, Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe has a combined one goal between the three of them and the team has outscored its opponents 12-6 since coming back from the break.

For one, the six goals the Panthers have allowed are the second-fewest any team has allowed since Feb. 22 behind only the Tampa Bay Lightning, who allowed three goals in four games.

On the other hand, it has been a group effort in every sense of the word from every other line and defense pairing down the lineup.

Rookie forward Mackie Samoskevich is the only player to score multiple goals — two — since returning from the break. (That number could have been three if it wasn’t for a successful goaltender interference challenge on a goal he scored against Seattle.)

Anton Lundell, Sam Bennett and Aaron Ekblad each share the team lead in points in since Feb. 22 with four. The Panthers have 10 total players with two points or more in that same span

On Thursday night against Edmonton, the Panthers got a pair of goals from their bottom defense pairing and three assists from Lundell. On Saturday afternoon against Calgary, it was Jonah Gadjovich and the fourth line that got things started before the Bennett line took over later on.

Everybody is contributing, and it is fueling the Panthers as they head down the stretch.

“You want as much confidence as you can build in your room,” Maurice said. “Winning games is great, and it’s the first and most important confidence builder, but you want the other guys going on the ice having felt something good has happened to them recently, right? They are not on a long tear where nothing is going for them and they feel snakebitten, so we spread it around as much as we possibly can.”