Niko Mikkola was on the ice for Florida's practice on Monday in Boston, where the team tried out some new power play units.
There was some rare good news for the Florida Panthers on Monday as the team hit the ice in Boston for a practice.
Florida has dropped each of their past four games, all on the road, and will try to salvage a win on Tuesday when they wrap up the trip against the Bruins.
The good news was that Panthers defenseman Niko Mikkola was on the ice for the skate after leaving Saturday’s loss in Buffalo early with an upper-body injury.
“I don’t know if I would say it was precautionary, we’re careful about all kinds of injuries, but it was good to have him back,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “He plays hard every night and always has an ice bag on something, but he was fine the next day.”
Florida has already been decimated by injures to key players, with Sasha Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Tomas Nosek and Dmitry Kulikov all out of the lineup for an extended period of time.
Losing another defenseman would have made things quite difficult for Florida moving forward, so it’s a big sigh of relief that Mikkola is alright.
Maurice also moved around his power play units a bit during Monday’s practice.
Joining Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart and Seth Jones on the first unit were Mackie Samoskevich and Anton Lundell.
Aaron Ekblad and Sam Bennett moved to the second power play group with Carter Verhaeghe, Evan Rodrigues and Eetu Luostarinen, with Ekblad replacing Jeff Petry at the point.
The moves also have both units featuring four forwards, which was only the case for PP2 so far this season.
“We just felt now is our best option to move some people around, change the units up a little bit,” said Maurice. “We put 15 (power play) shots on goal (in Buffalo). We’ve got to get a little better perhaps net front, but you don’t get too many power play nights where you get 15 on goal, because you still miss the net on a bunch and have a bunch blocked, so that part was right. I thought our pace was right, I thought the speed was right. We just want to try some different people, maybe they can get it off a little quicker, change the hands on some positions.”
Florida wraps up their roadie tomorrow night at 7 p.m. at TD Garden.
LATEST STORIES FROM THE HOCKEY NEWS - FLORIDA
Bruins Superstar Forward Speaks About Panthers' Marchand Returning To Boston
NHL fines Brad Marchand for 'unsportsmanlike conduct' after he ripped apart Rasmus Dahlin's helmet
Brad Marchand rips apart helmet belonging to Rasmus Dahlin after taking it with him to penalty box
Panthers Finding Scoring Difficult Without Barkov And Tkachuk
Photo caption: Mar 16, 2025; Elmont, New York, USA; Florida Panthers defenseman Niko Mikkola (77) at UBS Arena. (Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images)