The Florida Panthers received a significant boost to their lineup to close out the final month of the season as defenseman Seth Jones returned to the lineup on Tuesday following a lengthy time out with injury.
It didn’t make much of a difference in the immediate, though, as the Panthers’ slide since the Olympic break continued with a 5-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks — Florida’s sixth loss in 10 games since action resumed.
The Panthers are now 33-31-3 and 13 points back of a playoff spot with just 15 games left to play.
Jones missed the Panthers’ past 26 games after breaking his collarbone in the opening minutes of the Winter Classic on Jan. 2. Jones was originally supposed to be out between six to eight weeks, but a setback a couple weeks into his recovery reset that clock.
“He went through it,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said before the road trip. “It took a long time to heal, and there was nothing he could do. It just had to heal.”
In his return, Jones was on the ice for 20:16 and logged one shot on goal.
“It felt awesome,” Jones said of his return. “I was watching for way too long. I felt decent. My lungs and legs were a little dead there in the first period, but overall made some decent plays. Just trying to focus on the defensive side of the puck.”
In 40 games prior to the injury, Jones had 24 points (six goals, 18 assists) while averaging nearly 23-and-a-half minutes of ice time per game. He ran the top power play and was key on the penalty kill while playing as part of Florida’s most productive defense pair at five-on-five with Niko Mikkola.
Florida went 12-14-0 in his absence, going from hovering around a playoff spot despite a slew of other injuries — namely to Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Dmitry Kulikov, Tomas Nosek and Jonah Gadjovich — to all but knock them out of playoff contention.
That slide continued Tuesday as Florida fell behind 3-1 after the first period. Elias Pettersson scored a pair of power play goals and Marco Rossi added a third tally near the end of the period. Tkachuk scored for the Panthers — his ninth goal in 20 games this season.
Sam Bennett cut Florida’s deficit to 3-2 midway through the second period, but Aatu Raty scored for Vancouver three minutes later to push the Canucks’ lead to 4-2. Drew O’Connor capped scoring for Vancouver late in the third.
Sergei Bobrovsky, playing in his 800th career game, stopped 17 of 22 shots he faced.
In other Panthers lineup news, Mikkola plus forwards Evan Rodrigues and Eetu Luostarinen were out against Vancouver as Maurice continues to rotate key players out of the lineup.
The Panthers conclude this road trip with a back-to-back against the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday (9 p.m., Scripps Sports) and Calgary Flames on Friday (9 p.m., Scripps Sports).