The Florida Panthers have announced that forward Jonah Gadjovich has been sent to the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers under the terms of a conditioning loan.
Gadjovich has been on injured reserve for the team while recovering from an upper-body injury, and he was slated to return at some point in November. He’ll now be able to hit the ice for the Checkers, returning to the AHL for the first time since 2020-21.
Gadjovich, 25, has played in 79 career NHL games, almost entirely with the San Jose Sharks. A 2017 second-round pick, the Sharks claimed Gadjovich off of waivers from the Vancouver Canucks, an organization Gadjovich had risen standing with thanks to a 2020-21 campaign where he scored 15 goals in just 19 AHL games.
Gadjovich’s goal-scoring abilities from the OHL (he scored 46 goals in one season for the Owen Sound Attack) and AHL have not translated to the NHL level, where he’s played more as a grinder and occasional fighter. Gadjovich has racked up 148 penalty minutes in his NHL career, and it’s likely that his best chance at carving out a long career at the game’s top level lies in his physicality.
The Panthers lost quite a bit of bite in the offseason when Radko Gudas signed in Anaheim, so the return of Gadjovich to full health could help beef up their NHL lineup. Should Gadjovich land on head coach Paul Maurice’s fourth line in Sunrise, a player such as William Lockwood may shift to the AHL, as he’s currently scoreless through five NHL games but is a relatively established AHL scorer.