Florida Panthers right wing Mackie Samoskevich (11) high-fives teammates after scoring during the first period of a game against the Ottawa Senators on Florida Panthers Pride Night on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Fla. The Florida Panthers scored 5 goals in the first period.
Alie Skowronski
askowronski@miamiherald.com
The hits keep coming for the Florida Panthers.
Three more players, all defensemen, got banged up in the Panthers’ 6-3 win against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday at Amerant Bank Arena, thinning out an already thin roster that has eight games left on its schedule and is all but mathematically eliminated from making the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Dmitry Kulikov, who already missed 57 games this season because of a shoulder injury, took a puck to the face a little more than six-and-a-half minutes into the third period. He already had a CT scan scheduled.
Aaron Ekblad, who tied Aleksander Barkov’s franchise record for games played, injured his hand blocking a shot with about six minutes left in regulation.
And Donovan Sebrango, who has gone from being a depth defenseman to playing on Florida’s second pair, also got hurt blocking a shot in the final two minutes of the game.
“I’ve got a line for the X-ray machine,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said postgame Tuesday, “so tomorrow should be an interesting one. We’ll see who’s available for the next one.”
At this point, the Panthers’ list of key players injured is almost as long than the list of regulars who are still healthy enough to compete over the final two weeks of the season.
The Panthers enter their Thursday home game against the Boston Bruins (7 p.m., Scripps Sports) with eight players already officially ruled out for the season:
Center Aleksander Barkov (right knee surgery in training camp)Winger Brad Marchand (undisclosed lower body injury)Forward Sam Reinhart (foot)Center Anton Lundell (ribs)Forward Evan Rodrigues (broken finger)Defenseman Niko Mikkola (right knee)Defenseman Uvis Balinskis (broken foot)Forward Jonah Gadjovich (undisclosed upper body injury)
Now add in the potential absences of Ekblad, Kulikov and Sebrango — Maurice’s postgame comments Tuesday sounded as if Ekblad and Kulikov will miss time, while Sebrango’s injury happened too late in the game to have an immediate diagnosis — and that leaves Florida without half of its top 12 forwards and up to five of its main seven defensemen.
Yet the Panthers fought on, as they have all season. Even after Ekblad sustained the hand injury, which came while the Panthers were on the penalty kill trying to hold onto a three-goal lead, he stayed on the ice long enough for the Panthers to clear the puck. Sebrango muscled through some extra time after his blocked shot as well.
Their season is all but over — mathematical elimination from playoff contention coming as early as Thursday with a regulation loss — but there’s still no quit in the team.
“The bench is going berserk at that time,” Maurice said. “They’re cheering for them. They’re pulling for them. … That’s the strength of the room. They’ll sit in there with each other. They’re not gonna let each other down.”
And that means finding the next person — at this point, any person — to fill the voids that will come over the final eight games of the season.
Assuming Ekblad and Kulikov are out, Florida has just 11 healthy players left from last season’s Stanley Cup roster able to take the ice right now: Forwards Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe, Eetu Luostarinen, Mackie Samoskevich, Jesper Boqvist, Tomas Nosek and A.J. Greer; defensemen Gustav Forsling and Seth Jones; and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.
The Panthers have enough forward depth to fill out the final four spots, with Vinnie Hinostroza, Luke Kunin, Noah Gregor, Cole Reinhardt and Nolan Foote on the roster, plus the potential return of Cole Schwindt.
But the defense is where the depth is sorely lacking.
Beyond Forsling and Jones, the only guaranteed healthy defenseman right now is rookie Mike Benning, who has played in just 10 games.
Florida only has six active defensemen on the roster, so they will have to recall players from the Charlotte Checkers to replace any of Ekblad, Kulikov or Sebrango. Potential options that would make sense for call ups include Tobias Bjornfot, Mikulas Hovorka and Marek Alscher.
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Miami Herald
Jordan McPherson covers the Miami Hurricanes and Florida Panthers for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and covered the Gators athletic program for five years before joining the Herald staff in December 2017.