The first month of the season hasn’t been especially kind to the Florida Panthers, who are trying to become the first team since the New York Islanders in the early 1980s to win three straight Stanley Cup titles.
They lost captain Aleksander Barkov to a season-ending knee injury during training camp, and Matthew Tkachuk still is recovering from surgery for a torn adductor muscle and sports hernia. Their absences leave them without two of their top three point scorers from last season.
The Panthers still have plenty of offensive weapons, however, and veterans such as Sam Reinhart and Brad Marchand will try to continue leading the way when they visit the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night.
Reinhart has scored a goal in five of the past six games, including in a 5-2 win at the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday.
“One of the most impactful players in our room,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said of Reinhart. “As a leader, he’s got that great balance. He can talk to the coaches about Xs and Os because he sees things on the ice so very well, but he also will do hard things that kind of keep them connected to the players.”
Marchand scored two goals on Thursday to give him four in his last three games.
The Panthers lost their first four road games this season but have bounced back to win two of the past three. The only setback was a 7-3 loss at the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday.
“We’ve been a good road team, and we know we’re a better road team than we have played so far,” Florida forward Anton Lundell said.
The Sharks also are missing some key players.
William Eklund was placed on injured reserve Friday before San Jose beat the visiting Winnipeg Jets 2-1 for its second straight win.
The lower-body injury had been nagging Eklund for about a week before he missed a 3-2 shootout loss to the visiting Detroit Red Wings on Sunday. That came a night after he played in a 3-2 overtime win against the Colorado Avalanche.
Eklund then missed the 6-1 victory at the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday.
Ryan Reaves was activated to fill Eklund’s roster spot while he’s on IR, which is retroactive to last Sunday, so he’s only guaranteed to miss Saturday’s game.
“I don’t play big minutes like some of these guys,” Reaves said. “Some games, based on penalties, I’m only playing four or five minutes, so I try and help out in other ways, whether it’s yelling at guys from the ice, telling them heads-up, or somebody jumps out of position and I notice it, letting them know, energy whenever I can.”
The Sharks also are without Michael Misa, the second overall pick of the 2025 NHL Draft. Misa has missed the past three games with a lower-body injury.
Misa was set to play on Wednesday but left the morning skate with a lower-body injury and was designated as week-to-week on Friday.
“It happened during our power play drill,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said on Friday. “A puck battle and something happened.”
–Field Level Media
