{"id":444326,"date":"2026-02-04T01:31:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/444326\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T01:31:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:31:34","slug":"sam-bennett-injury-latest-issue-for-scuffling-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/444326\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Bennett injury latest issue for scuffling Panthers"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT LAUDERDALE \u2014 Panthers star forward Sam Bennett suffered an upper-body injury during Florida\u2019s loss to Buffalo on Monday night.<\/a> It\u2019s the latest in a series of injuries that have decimated the reigning Stanley Cup champions, who have lost four straight games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like somebody\u2019s getting injured every night,\u201d Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk said.<\/p>\n

Panthers coach Paul Maurice said Bennett \u2014 who was picked to replace Tampa Bay\u2019s Anthony Cirelli for the Canadian Olympic team<\/a> on Tuesday \u2014 and fellow forwards Anton Lundell and Brad Marchand may be able to play Wednesday against Boston, but the team has not made that determination yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a chance they could all play tomorrow,\u201d Maurice said. \u201cThere\u2019s a chance none of them play tomorrow, but we won\u2019t know till after the morning skate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennett\u2019s injury meant all four of the Panthers\u2019 centers from last year\u2019s Stanley Cup team \u2014 captain Aleksander Barkov, Lundell, Bennett and Tomas Nosek \u2014 are hurt. Florida needed winger Eetu Luostarinen to move to center, a position he previously played, to fill the void on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was good; five on two on the draws,\u201d Maurice said Monday. \u201cI like him better on the wing because of what Lundell does, what the two of them can do, but everybody needed to play all over.\u201d<\/p>\n

The growing list of injuries that have plagued Florida all season have not gone unnoticed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get started blowing up barbecues, you start to think,\u201d Maurice said, referring to Luostarinen suffering an injury while grilling earlier this season<\/a>. \u201c\u2026 But I would say that in everything that\u2019s happened here over the last four years, there\u2019s something to be gleaned out of your adversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maurice said the team needs to stick to its foundation and stay confident so they avoid pressing. He said the Panthers did that in their loss to Buffalo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think sometimes you\u2019ll sit so defensively because of the urgency and it\u2019s also the foundation of your game,\u201d Maurice said. \u201cBut we put up (42 shots) last night and felt we had opportunities to score. So there has to be a certain amount of freedom and ease in your game for the confidence to stay and to make plays because you can\u2019t just (keep) kicking it out into the neutral zone all night. I thought we were good with that last game. Most important thing is you have a foundation. That has to be there first. You can\u2019t lose that ease in your game where you\u2019re too tight to create.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tkachuk said right now the Panthers just have to grind out close victories.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot try to outskill teams \u2014 and that\u2019s not what we were trying to do \u2014 but at some points in the game, we are doing that. We\u2019re just playing into their hands,\u201d Tkachuk said. \u201c\u2026 We\u2019ve just got to try to get back to the basics. We\u2019ve got to try to win a 1-0, 2-1 game here and just try to go from there. We\u2019re in one right now, and if we don\u2019t simplify it, this year\u2019s going to get away from us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers are feeling the urgency of the moment. Florida plays Boston on Wednesday and Tampa Bay on Thursday before the team gets a three-week break for the Olympics. But Tkachuk said the Panthers, who are currently nine points out of a playoff spot, need to turn things around before the break; they cannot wait any longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could get away from us if we don\u2019t figure it out,\u201d Tkachuk said. \u201cIt has to start next game. We\u2019ve got two games left, and Boston\u2019s another team we\u2019re chasing that\u2019s a wild card team, so we\u2019ve got to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE \u2014 Panthers star forward Sam Bennett suffered an upper-body injury during Florida\u2019s loss to Buffalo on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5121],"tags":[57,5,78,1180,4,43,77,18,5288],"class_list":{"0":"post-444326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg-jets","8":"tag-florida-panthers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-jets","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-winnipeg","15":"tag-winnipeg-jets","16":"tag-winnipegjets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116009781385557504","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}