Sam Reinhart returned to practice Wednesday after an injury scare while Carter Verhaeghe and Uvis Balinskis sat out Wednesday's skate with undisclosed ailments.
The Florida Panthers were back on the ice Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale.
Vibes around the rink were good following Florida’s exciting, last-minute comeback win over the Detroit Red Wings the night before.
The Panthers pulled off the victory despite missing their top two leading scorers, Brad Marchand and Sam Reinhart.
Marchand is visiting with doctors this week and is likely to miss an extended period of time due to an injury that he’s been playing through for much of the season.
As for Reinhart, he was back on the ice during Florida’s practice at the Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale.
He skated on a line with Even Rodrigues and Eetu Luostarinen, swapping in and out with Anton Lundell.
While it may be TBD on who Reinhart lines up with, Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said Reinhart will likely be in the lineup when Florida hosts the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night in Sunrise.
Absent from Wednesday’s skate were forward Carter Verhaeghe and defenseman Uvis Balinskis.
Verhaeghe had a big night on Tuesday, scoring two goals in the game’s final 90 seconds to propel the Panthers to a 4-3 victory.
Maurice said Verhaeghe had something that “tightened up in the game last night” and that he “came in quite a bit stiffer” when he arrived to the rink Wednesday.
Balinskis was held out due to lower-body injury that he suffered after blocking a shot during Florida’s loss to Buffalo back on Feb. 27.
He’s been playing through it, but Maurice said the injury flared up so they are playing it cautious with the veteran defenseman.
Both Verhaeghe and Balinskis are considered day-to-day and are still possible to play Thursday against Columbus.
“Those two are potentially out for tomorrow, but there’s one other question mark based on how they get through these two days,” Maurice said. “These rest days right now are really important. We’re trying to get a guy back to 100% so we don’t have to deal with it for five weeks.”
Puck drops from Amerant Bank Arena at 7 p.m.
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