Updates on Aaron Ekblad, Carter Verhaeghe as Florida Panthers begin final homestand
The Panthers are approaching their final four home games with the upcoming postseason in mind
The Florida Panthers took the ice at the Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale for the team’s first formal practice in weeks.
Florida returned home from its final road trip of the regular season after losing in overtime to the Boston Bruins on Saturday.
Now the Cats have a final four games on their schedule, all at Amerant Bank Arena, to use as a warmup for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The goal is for the Panthers to enter the postseason as close to full strength as possible while playing the style that they’ve spent the past year working to perfect.
“Surely, you're always trying to win these games,” Florida Head Coach Paul Maurice said Monday. “But I do feel quite strongly, even a week ago when things weren't going our way…we weren't particularly worried about it, but you're looking for something to happen very soon. I think it happened in our last two games. I like where we're at.”
As for the games themselves, lineups and ice times may not be what we’re used to seeing with the Panthers.
This time of the season, it’s all about the endgame.
“You're looking to get through them,” Maurice said. “You want to be fast, you want to be right, and you want to be healthy, too. So we'll manage people's ice times in practice and in games as well.”
During last week’s road trip, Florida lost both Carter Verhaeghe and Aaron Ekblad to injuries; Verhaeghe was hurt during Monday’s defeat in Toronto while Ekblad went down the following night in Montreal.
Verhaeghe, who suffered an upper-body injury, has been able to continue working on the ice and should be ready when Game 1 arrives.
“Carter won't need any (practice reps) because he's skating every day, so he should be fine,” Maurice said. “Handling the puck will come just before he goes, I’m not worried about that.”
It’s a similar situation with Ekblad, though Maurice indicated that he’d like to see his top pairing defenseman get in a couple heavy skates ahead of the postseason.
There is just no sense of urgency to get them into a regular season game.
“It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Maurice said. “Because we would take those two days, the pregame and the game day, and we would turn them into skates. We’d control the environment.”
It a cautious approach Maurice and his staff have taken with injuries over the past couple months.
Again, the goal is the playoffs…and they’ll be here before we know it.
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