Injuries have significantly impacted the Florida Panthers\u2019 pursuit of a third consecutive Stanley Cup. However, assuming there are no further setbacks, they could return a trio of players shortly after the Olympic break.<\/p>\n
In an update<\/a> from the team, the Panthers could return Tomas Nosek<\/a>, Dmitry Kulikov<\/a>, and Jonah Gadjovich<\/a> in their road trip at the beginning of March. That would indicate that each player should only miss a game or two before being activated from the long-term injured reserve.<\/p>\n Head coach Paul Maurice provided a quote explaining the situation, saying, \u201cThey\u2019ll go probably non-contact this week and then maybe get released for contact in and around the Toronto game (at home on Feb. 26), which would keep them out of those games. But if they can get through the week, then somewhere on the road trip there will be a chance they\u2019ll come back. I just don\u2019t know the answer to a lot of them. They\u2019ve been off for an awfully long time. We do need to get them into to a certain level of confidence before [they return].\u201d<\/p>\n None of the three would provide Florida with a game-changing addition by any stretch, though a return of all three would drastically improve the team\u2019s depth. Absent netminders, the Panthers have used 28 different players this season and have eight players currently dealing with some injury or another.<\/p>\n Nosek has missed the most time. After suffering a significant knee injury during offseason training that required surgery, Nosek has remained sidelined for the entire 2025-26 season up to this point. His first season with the Panthers came last season, scoring one goal and nine points in 59 games, averaging 9:49 of ice time.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Kulikov has also been out for much of the 2025-26 campaign. Suffering a torn labrum in early October, the 35-year-old has been limited to two games this season. Throughout his last two years in Florida, he\u2019s credited with five goals and 33 points in 146 games with 259 hits.<\/p>\n Like Kulikov, Gadjovich has also been out of the lineup since October. Also undergoing surgery, Gadjovich has only appeared in 10 games this year. As the Panthers continue their push toward the postseason, returning several of their injured players and adding a piece or two at the deadline should help in that endeavor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Injuries have significantly impacted the Florida Panthers\u2019 pursuit of a third consecutive Stanley Cup. However, assuming there are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[257,62,57,5141,5,402,250,4,63,256],"class_list":{"0":"post-466414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-dmitry-kulikov","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-panthers","11":"tag-floridapanthers","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-injury","14":"tag-jonah-gadjovich","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-panthers","17":"tag-tomas-nosek"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466414","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=466414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}