{"id":70729,"date":"2025-06-11T22:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T22:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/70729\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T22:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T22:40:11","slug":"healthier-panthers-are-nearing-full-strength-in-the-stanley-cup-final-against-the-oilers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/70729\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthier Panthers are nearing full strength in the Stanley Cup Final against the Oilers"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The bumps and bruises and worse started to pile up midway through the Florida Panthers\u2019 third consecutive trip<\/a> to the Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n

Matthew Tkachuk only returned<\/a> for the playoff opener after sitting out the final two months of the regular season with the injury he suffered at the 4 Nations Face-Off<\/a> in February and seems to still be gutting through it. Sam Reinhart and Niko Mikkola each missed time during the Eastern Conference final, and A.J. Greer\u2019s injury<\/a> he tried playing through eventually sidelined him.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s very hard to win a Cup with unhealthy bodies,\u201d Greer said.<\/p>\n

The Panthers found that out the hard way two years ago when they were the skating wounded<\/a>. Tkachuk had a broken sternum<\/a>, Aaron Ekblad had a broken foot, two shoulder dislocations and a torn oblique muscle, Radko Gudas had a high ankle sprain and they lost to Vegas<\/a> in five games in the final.<\/p>\n

While the Edmonton Oilers looked to be<\/a> in better shape going into this series with the notable exception of injured forward Zach Hyman<\/a>, Florida has gotten healthier. Coach Paul Maurice said Reinhart is \u201cback to full health,\u201d Tkachuk, Mikkola and Greer are making a difference and the defending champions are two wins away<\/a> from hoisting the Cup for a second year in a row.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always good to have a full team that\u2019s healthy,” fourth-liner Tomas Nosek<\/a> said after practice Wednesday. “It\u2019s been good so far, and hopefully it stays that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Panthers will have their ideal lineup for Game 4 on Thursday night<\/a> in Sunrise after that same group waxed Edmonton 6-1 earlier this week to take a 2-1 lead in the final. Other than do-it-all defenseman Seth Jones, no one played more than 23 minutes in Game 3.<\/p>\n

That balance, after so much overtime hockey early in what looked to be an evenly matched series<\/a>, combined with an extra day between games, makes them rested and ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been, I think, great the whole playoffs,” center Anton Lundell said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really matter when we play. It\u2019s always fun to play, so we don\u2019t really care. But obviously now we have had a couple days off, so it\u2019s fun to get the energy back and prepare.”<\/p>\n

Reinhart scoring Monday night was his first goal since being out for two games in the Eastern Conference final, ending a drought that dated to the second round against Toronto. He had six shots in Game 2<\/a> and has been steadily progressing.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m not worried about him,\u201d Maurice said. \u201cI think his game is getting stronger \u2014 quite a bit stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

So is Tkachuk’s, even if it’s clear the tough winger is not moving as well as he does when 100%. But he had an assist and was noticeably better in Game 3, which Maurice called Tkachuk’s best of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took him a while to build out,\u201d Maurice said. \u201cThe speed of the Carolina series was probably a really, really good thing. Some of these injuries I\u2019m sure they\u2019re dealing with it, you can\u2019t condition them and rehab them at the same time. They need some time. And he was out for such a very long time that I would say the last month, but certainly the last three weeks, he\u2019s back to form now.\u201d<\/p>\n

That spells trouble for the Oilers, playing without Hyman and with top-line forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins dealing with an undisclosed injury that has him relegated him to game-time-decision uncertainty. Their longest-tenured player not being 100% is a major blow after Nugent-Hopkins, Connor McDavid and Hyman were such an effective trio getting to this point.<\/p>\n

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Coach Kris Knoblauch foreshadowed a lineup change<\/a> that may or may not be injury related. Either way, his team’s depth is being tested.<\/p>\n

The same has been the case for the Panthers, who have used 22 skaters in the playoffs following 30 during the season. They’ve grown accustomed to shuffling players in and out and chugging along like some of the NHL’s best teams have to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith our depth this year, even when guys are injured or guys are out of the lineup, there\u2019s just so much depth on our team that guys can fill in seamlessly and it doesn\u2019t change our lineup that much,\u201d Bennett said. “That\u2019s definitely a huge factor for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The bumps and bruises and worse started to pile up midway through the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[261,803,245,155,4220,198,146,5300,5,94,4,255,24,63,804,9464,15,252,259,244,256,66,1585],"class_list":{"0":"post-70729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-a-j-greer","9":"tag-aaron-ekblad","10":"tag-anton-lundell","11":"tag-connor-mcdavid","12":"tag-eastern-conference-final","13":"tag-edmonton","14":"tag-edmonton-oilers","15":"tag-edmontonoilers","16":"tag-hockey","17":"tag-matthew-tkachuk","18":"tag-nhl","19":"tag-niko-mikkola","20":"tag-oilers","21":"tag-panthers","22":"tag-paul-maurice","23":"tag-radko-gudas","24":"tag-ryan-nugent-hopkins","25":"tag-sam-reinhart","26":"tag-seth-jones","27":"tag-the-panthers","28":"tag-tomas-nosek","29":"tag-toronto","30":"tag-zach-hyman"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114667141528833273","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70729","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=70729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}