Florida Panthers welcome back injured star defensemen Brandon Montour, Aaron Ekblad
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SUNRISE — Many hockey experts thought the Florida Panthers would be in a vulnerable spot with star defensemen Brandon Montour and Aaron Ekblad sidelined with injuries to start the 2023-24 season.
Little did they know that the Panthers’ run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2023 was no fluke.
Florida went 10-5-1 without its two best blueliners before promptly securing two wins since their return last week.
“The guys have been playing well and they like where their game is at,” Montour said. “For both of us, we want to keep adding to the strength of our team. Obviously, our record shows how well we’ve been playing. Hopefully, we can keep adding to that.”
With both of their best defensemen out of the lineup, the Panthers ranked in the top 10 in the league in least goals against and scoring chances for.
A lot of it had to do with the contributions of recent free agent signings Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Niko Mikkola, Uvis Balinskis and Dmitry Kulikov.
“It’s very hard without those guys,” captain Aleksander Barkov said. “You can’t replace them.
“Everybody on this team just had to step up a little bit and play a little better, and I think every single guy on this team has been playing as hard as possible. That’s all we can do, that’s all we want to do, and when we do that, we have a chance to win.”
With Ekblad and Montour combining for over 100 points last season, the Panthers needed some offense from the back end to help them keep things afloat.
Ekman-Larsson has done that and more, scoring five goals and 11 points while improving mightily on the defensive end after getting bought out by the Vancouver Canucks last season.
A demotion to the third-pairing did not seem to be a hindrance for Ekman-Larsson, as he added a goal and retained his position of quarterback of the top power play when they returned to the lineup.
“Oliver Ekman-Larsson is elite in this league at getting the puck to the net and that is probably the first place that I would look as part of the reason we signed him,” coach Paul Maurice said. “He is one of the very best, just looking at the numbers he has put up, at getting the puck off the wall to the middle and getting that puck to the net.”
Aleksander Barkov is day-to-day with knee injury
The Panthers could not stay fully healthy for long, however.
Barkov is day-to-day after taking a knee-to-knee hit from Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe on Friday.
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“We got lucky,” Maurice said of the hit.
Florida likely still will be without its captain when it hosts the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night (7 p.m., TNT) before finally returning to full strength for the first time all season.
But they already know they are capable of holding down the fort with star players out of the lineup.
“You can win in the National Hockey League on any given night,” Maurice said. ”We’ve seen it done with eight to nine guys out of our lineup. But you just can’t win long-term. We survived 16 games without the defensemen, but to get on runs and stay on runs, you need your team.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Panthers start 2023-24 season strong even without Brandon Montour, Aaron Ekblad
