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Panthers Recall Uvis Balinskis

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The Panthers have recalled left-shot defenseman Uvis Balinskis from AHL Charlotte, according to a team statement. The move comes under emergency conditions (per CapFriendly) after blue-liner Aaron Ekblad left yesterday’s loss to the Canadiens after the first period with an undisclosed injury and did not return.

Balinskis could slot in tomorrow against the Senators if Ekblad is out, although Tobias Björnfot and Josh Mahura are also available to play. It was a short-lived return to the lineup for Ekblad, who only played four games after a lower-body injury kept him out for most of March. It’s unclear how long Florida expects their 2014 first-overall pick to be unavailable, but it’s not an ideal finish to the season for Ekblad or his club, which is at risk of losing home-ice advantage in a potential first-round clash against the Maple Leafs after going 2-7-1 in their last 10 games.

This is Balinskis’ first NHL season after spending his professional career to date in Russia and Czechia. He’s made 22 appearances for the Panthers on his one-year, entry-level contract, notching a goal and two assists with an even rating while averaging 14:09 per game. The Latvian blue-liner was only recently assigned to Charlotte after Ekblad made his return last week and inked a two-year, $1.7MM extension with the Cats back in January.

Balinskis made the opening night roster with Ekblad and Brandon Montour beginning the campaign on the shelf after undergoing offseason shoulder surgeries but was assigned to Charlotte in December once the team was at full health on the back end. He’s been recalled three times since, including today.

Injury Notes: Ekblad, Rielly, Harkins

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With Uvis Balinskis being reassigned to the Charlotte Checkers yesterday afternoon, the Florida Panthers had an open spot to fill in their defensive core. In doing so, it appears that defenseman Aaron Ekblad will make his return to the lineup tonight, as he was a full participant in practice this morning (X Link).

Ekblad, who has not played since the Panthers’ game on March 9th, has missed the last seven games for the organization. In the time that he has missed, Florida has not played particularly well, producing a 2-4-1 record in his absence, averaging 3.43 goals against per game over that stretch.

With now 10 games left in the regular season for the team, the Panthers will battle it out with the Boston Bruins over playoff positioning in the first two rounds of the playoffs. As the New York Rangers look to clinch both the Eastern Conference and the President’s Trophy, the Panthers will match up against the Tampa Bay Lightning or Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round.

Other injury notes:

  • Moving north to Toronto, it does not appear that defenseman Morgan Rielly will make his return to the lineup for the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight, as he is still dealing with an upper-body injury. Fortunately, this will only be the second game in a row that Rielly has missed with this injury, as he has otherwise maintained quality health over the 2023-24 NHL season.
  • In Pittsburgh, Dan Potash of SportsNet Pittsburgh reports that forward Jansen Harkins has returned to practice for the Pittsburgh Penguins. A bottom-six forward for the Penguins this year, Harkins has not played since just before the March 8th trade deadline due to an upper-body injury. Suiting up 43 games this year, Harkins has tallied four assists while averaging just over eight minutes of ice time per night.

Atlantic Notes: Samsonov, Jost, Panthers, Engstrom

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Maple Leafs goaltender Ilya Samsonov left Saturday’s victory over Edmonton with what looked to be a lower-body injury.  However, it appears that the netminder won’t miss much time as head coach Sheldon Keefe told reporters postgame including Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun that the injury isn’t anywhere near as severe as it initially appeared to be.  That said, he was not in uniform today against Carolina.  It has been an interesting year for the 27-year-old who posted a .862 SV% in his first 15 games, resulting in him clearing waivers.  However, since returning in mid-January, Samsonov has won 14 of his 19 decisions while putting up a much stronger .908 SV%.  Eligible for unrestricted free agency this summer, Samsonov will need a strong finish to have a shot at besting his current $3.55MM contract on the open market.

More from the Atlantic:

  • The Sabres will be without center Tyson Jost tonight due to an undisclosed injury, relays Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News (Twitter link). The 26-year-old played in their last game on Thursday but was unable to practice yesterday.  Jost has played in 36 games with Buffalo so far this season, notching just two goals and two assists; his early-season struggles resulted in him clearing waivers back in late December.  That’s hardly the type of season he was hoping for as he becomes eligible for unrestricted free agency in July.
  • The Panthers could get a pair of key players back shortly. com’s Adam Kimelman reports (Twitter link) that defenseman Aaron Ekblad and center Aleksander Barkov could return within the week from their respective lower-body injuries.  Ekblad, who has been limited to just 47 games this season, is right on schedule after being injured a little over two weeks ago while Barkov, who sits fourth in team scoring with 66 points in 62 games, has been out for the past week.
  • The Canadiens are hoping to sign prospect Adam Engstrom once his SHL playoffs with Rogle come to an end, notes The Athletic’s Arpon Basu (subscription link). The 20-year-old was a third-round pick (92nd overall) in 2022 and is coming off a decent campaign that saw him pick up 22 points in 51 games in his second full year in Sweden’s top division.  Unlike some college players who will sign and play right away, it’s likely that any agreement with Engstrom wouldn’t begin until next season.

Aaron Ekblad Out At Least Two Weeks

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Panthers blue-liner Aaron Ekblad will miss at least two weeks with a lower-body injury, head coach Paul Maurice told reporters (via Jameson Olive of the team’s official site). The 2014 first-overall pick sustained the injury in Saturday’s win over the Flames, playing just over five minutes before exiting the contest. Maurice said Ekblad will be evaluated daily after the two-week mark, and the team aims for a return around the end of the month. He also said that winger Evan Rodrigues, who left the Calgary game with a lower-body injury in the second period, will be a game-time decision tomorrow in Dallas.

Ekblad appeared to sustain a left knee injury after colliding with new teammate Vladimir Tarasenko near center ice (video via Hockey Daily 365 on Twitter/X). The 28-year-old had logged two separate one-game absences due to lower-body injuries earlier this season, as well as a 16-game absence to begin the season while recovering from offseason shoulder surgery. Battling through injuries, he’s had a diminished offensive impact, recording four goals and 17 points through 47 games. It’s his lowest per-game pace in seven years, although his possession metrics have remained high-end, with a 56.9 CF% and 52.3 xGF%. He’s also averaging less than 22 minutes per game for the first time since 2017, but he does have a +26 rating, tied for second on the team behind Gustav Forsling’s league-leading +47.

His absence leaves the Panthers with just one right-shot defenseman – Brandon Montour – on the active roster. Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who shouldered top-pairing minutes early in the season with Ekblad and Montour both sidelined, will return to that role by skating on his off-side on a pairing with Forsling, who’s fresh off signing an eight-year extension.

As Ekblad is not expected to miss at least 10 games and 24 days, he’s not eligible for long-term injured reserve. Placing him on standard injured reserve offers no benefit, as the 23-player roster limit is now lifted post-deadline. Waiver claim Tobias Björnfot is available to draw into the lineup if additional injuries occur on the blue line, while Josh Mahura, who skated in all 82 regular-season games last season, re-enters the lineup after slipping to seventh on the Panthers’ defensive depth chart.

Rodrigues, 30, has avoided a major injury, meaning the Panthers will have their new-look top-nine with Tarasenko in the fold remain intact. Rodrigues, who’s been one of Florida’s better two-way forwards after inking a four-year, $12MM deal last summer, has 10 goals and 36 points in 65 games.

Injury Notes: O’Connor, MacKinnon, Ekblad, Tavares

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The Colorado Avalanche will be without the services of forward Logan O’Connor tomorrow night, as Meghan Angley of DNVR Avalanche reports the team will hold him out of the lineup so that he can play more continuously when fully healthy. O’Connor has missed the last two games for Colorado as he suffered a lower-body injury in the team’s recent contest against the Florida Panthers.

Amid a career year offensively, the typical bottom-six player for the Avalanche has already reached a career-high total in goals with 13 and is only one point behind his career-high in points with 25. Shaping up to be an integral part of their postseason aspirations, O’Connor still has one year and $1.05MM remaining on his contract after this season.

Either in practice or in the team’s most recent game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Evan Rawal of Colorado Hockey Now reports that Nathan MacKinnon had broken his nose after taking a puck to the face. MacKinnon is not expected to miss any time with the injury but could be seen wearing a bubble on his helmet tomorrow night.

Other injury notes:

  • Before their game tonight against their in-state rivals, the Panthers announced that defenseman Aaron Ekblad would miss the game due to a lower-body injury. Ekblad had previously missed the majority of the start to the 2023-24 campaign due to offseason shoulder surgery. Upon his return in mid-November, Ekblad has regained most of his previous form, scoring three goals and 14 points in 37 games while averaging over 21 minutes a night for the Panthers.
  • The Toronto Maple Leafs will be without their captain tonight, as John Tavares is reportedly considered day-to-day with a minor injury (X Link). Taking a bit of a step back from his previous scoring pace in Toronto, Tavares still sits fifth on the team in scoring with 15 goals and 40 points in 51 games.

Panthers To Focus On Extending Pending Free Agents

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ESPN’s Kevin Weekes tweeted today that he expects the Florida Panthers to turn their attention to their pending unrestricted free agents after missing out on signing forward Patrick Kane. The Panthers didn’t have much available cap space to sign the three-time Stanley Cup champion for this season and could face a shortage of it next summer when they try to negotiate long-term extensions with some of the top free agents available.

Sam Reinhart, Brandon Montour, and Gustav Forsling are all set to hit the market on July 1st, 2024, and could take a sizeable chunk of the $28.8MM in cap space the Panthers are projected to have available next summer.

Reinhart has scored at least 22 goals in six consecutive seasons and is coming off back-to-back 30-goal campaigns. He is currently on pace for the first 100-point season of his career, although it is early in the season. But if the 28-year-old can keep up a pace close to that he could be looking at a long-term deal in the range of $8MM-9MM annually.

Montour on the other hand is a difficult projection to make. He had 73 points last season in 80 games but has never topped 40 points in any other season during his eight-year NHL career. He missed the Panthers’ first 16 games of the season and has had a slow start offensively with just a single assist in five games thus far. He will most likely see a sharp increase on his next contract from the $3.5MM cap hit that he currently carries, but much of his future earning potential will be decided by the direction the rest of this season takes.

Forsling is the final high-profile free agent the Panthers will need to sign next summer and after a pair of solid seasons in Florida will be looking to cash in. The 27-year-old plays in all situations and has really seen his offensive game improve over the last couple of years. He is currently carrying a cap hit that is a shade over $2.6MM and could command an additional $3MM-$4MM per season given that he has proved he can be a top-pairing defenseman for the Panthers.

Florida will be hard-pressed to sign all three players as they will have other areas of need to consider going forward. Aaron Ekblad will be a free agent in the summer of 2025 as will Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe.

Florida Panthers Place Mike Reilly On Waivers

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David Dwork of The Hockey News has tweeted that the Florida Panthers have placed defensemen Mike Reilly on waivers today. The expectation is that if Reilly goes unclaimed, he will be assigned to the Charlotte Checkers of the AHL. Reilly has suited up in just two games for the Panthers this season and has registered no points and a -2 rating.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Reilly was bought out in the offseason by the Boston Bruins before eventually signing a one-year $1MM deal with the Panthers. He was expected to serve as a depth option for Florida, but with Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour back in the fold there is really no need for the Panthers to keep Reilly at the NHL level.

The 30-year-old spent nearly half of last season in the AHL with the Providence Bruins and was quite productive offensively registering seven goals and 19 assists in 36 games.

Reilly has struggled at the NHL level since signing a three-year $9MM deal with the Boston Bruins in July of 2021. He stuck with the Bruins in the first year of his three-year deal but has bounced back and forth between the AHL and NHL for the past two seasons. If Reilly can put up offensive numbers like last year’s AHL numbers, he could be first in line for a recall if the Panthers run into any injury troubles.

Panthers Activate Aaron Ekblad, Brandon Montour; Place Josh Mahura On IR

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The Panthers have activated defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour off LTIR ahead of tonight’s game against the Ducks, Colby Guy of Florida Hockey Now relays.

Additionally, defenseman Josh Mahura left last night’s game against the Kings with a lower-body injury after six shifts and did not return. Now, the NHL’s media site shows that Mahura has been placed on IR and will be out of the lineup for at least seven days, as David Dwork of Local 10 Miami and The Hockey News relays.

Forward Jonah Gadjovich is also available to play for the Panthers after his conditioning loan with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers ended today, George Richards of Florida Hockey Now says. The moves result in the Panthers having a cap-compliant 23-man roster with less than $100K in cap space (CapFriendly later listed this figure as less than $500K).

Ekblad and Montour were unavailable for the beginning of the season after undergoing off-season shoulder surgeries to address injuries sustained in the Panthers’ run to the 2024 Stanley Cup Final. They are now eligible to play in tonight’s contest and are expected to make their season debuts in top-four roles. Ekblad is expected to suit up alongside Gustav Forsling, who’s logged a +11 rating and is averaging nearly 24 minutes per game. Montour, meanwhile, will comprise the second pairing with offseason addition Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who seems to have new life breathed into his game and leads Panthers defensemen with ten points in 16 games.

To make room for Ekblad and Montour in the lineup, Latvian defender Uvis Balinskis will be a healthy scratch, in addition to Mahura landing on IR. Balinskis, an undrafted free agent in his first NHL season, has appeared in 14 of 16 games for the Panthers this season, notching two points and a +2 rating while averaging 13:58 per game. The team now has eight defensemen on the active roster, with Mike Reilly still hanging around the team as an oft-scratch. Offseason signings Dmitry Kulikov and Niko Mikkola, who have both averaged over 19 minutes per game this season in the absence of Ekblad and Montour, will form a shutdown third pairing with the Panthers’ defense now at near total health.

The return of the Panthers’ top two defensemen provides a boon to a team that’s treaded well in their absence, sitting second in the Atlantic Division with a 10-5-1 record. Their success is largely due to the remarkable play of their first line, comprised of captain Aleksander Barkov with Evan Rodrigues and Sam Reinhart on his flank. Reinhart leads all Panthers in scoring and sits near the top of the league leaderboard with 13 goals and 24 points, while Rodrigues has fit in nicely with three goals and 13 points in 16 games after signing a four-year, $12MM deal in free agency last summer.

Montour is entering the final season of a three-year contract carrying a $3.5MM cap hit, one that proved to be an immense bargain last season. The 29-year-old right-shot D had one of the most notable breakout campaigns of any player in the league, recording a career-high 16 goals, 57 assists and 73 points in 80 games and finished 12th in Norris Trophy voting. Ekblad remains under contract through 2024-25 and logged over 23 minutes per night for a third consecutive season in 2022-23.

It’s a tough break for Mahura, who has seen limited ice time this season and now faces an uphill battle for a roster spot when he returns from injury. The 25-year-old had five assists and a -2 rating, playing in all 16 games, but had failed to see more than 15 minutes of ice in any single game this year. A 2016 third-round pick of the Ducks, Mahura is signed to a one-year, $925K deal and will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights at the end of the season.

Atlantic Notes: Sabres, Panthers, Red Wings

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For the most part, the Buffalo Sabres have been dealing with some inconsistent goaltending to start the 2023-24 season. After the injury to goaltender Eric Comrie, the team has been rolling with a combination of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Devon Levi, who have both played in five games on the year.

At still only 21 years old, much of Levi’s poor start could be attributed to growing pains, as he only has a 2-3-0 record, coupled with a .886 SV% and a 3.41 GAA. Luukkonen on the other hand has had incredible starts such as the one against the Colorado Avalanche on October 29th, earning a shutout against a solid offensive team. However, only two games later, Luukkonen would let in five goals on 19 shots against the Philadelphia Flyers, an offense that is not nearly as capable as Colorado’s.

To try and get more consistency out of his goaltenders, Lance Lysowksi of The Buffalo News reports that head coach Don Gronato is not keen on giving one starter a bulk of the starts, and will begin to rotate Levi and Luukkonen more regularly, in an attempt to create a hot hand in the net. This is largely the most logistical choice for the Sabres to make for the time being, as neither starter has shown the capacity to carry a majority of the load quite yet in their young careers.

Other notes:

  • Last week, it was reported that Florida Panthers’ defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour would be returning to practice in non-contact jerseys on Sunday, as both players are still recovering from shoulder surgery needed after the team’s run to the 2023 Stanley Cup Final. In an exciting update on their recovery process, Jameson Olive of the NHL reports that once the Panthers return from their West Coast road trip next week, there is a chance either one of them could appear in a game during that homestand. With a record of 5-4-1 to start the year, the team could certainly benefit from getting both of these defensemen back in the lineup.
  • The Detroit Red Wings announced that captain Dylan Larkin is questionable to play against the New York Rangers tomorrow night, and that forward Robby Fabbri will make his return to the lineup. Getting off to one of the hottest starts of his career, Larkin appeared to have an issue closing his right hand during the team’s recent game against the Boston Bruins, even leaving the bench for a short time. Ultimately, Larkin would return towards the end of the second period and scored the game-tying goal early in the third period.

Panthers Notes: Ekblad, Montour, Barkov, Bennett

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Panthers defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour both skated today and are expected to take part in practice with the team on Sunday in non-contact jerseys, reports Florida Hockey Now’s George Richards.  Both players played through shoulder injuries in the playoffs, undergoing surgery soon after the Stanley Cup Final concluded.  The original expectation was that both players would be back sometime around mid-December.  However, head coach Paul Maurice suggested that the timeline could be moved up a bit, noting the veterans could be back by the end of next month which would certainly be a big boost with Ekblad and Montour being two of their top blueliners.  Ekblad is currently on LTIR while Montour is on regular injured reserve.

More from Florida:

  • The Panthers will welcome their captain back to the lineup tonight as play-by-play voice Steve Goldstein relays (Twitter link) that Aleksander Barkov will suit up after missing last game with an illness. The 28-year-old is off to a nice start to his season with six points in his first five appearances while averaging over 21 minutes a night.  Florida sent Mackie Samoskevich back to AHL Charlotte yesterday, signifying that they expected Barkov would be cleared to play today against Seattle.
  • While Sam Bennett also skated today, he will not suit up tonight, notes Bally Sports Florida’s Katie Engelson (Twitter link). The 27-year-old has yet to play so far this season due to a lingering lower-body injury.  Maurice indicated that Bennett remains listed as day-to-day but is close to returning; he is expected to accompany the Panthers on their upcoming road trip.  He’s coming off his second straight 40-point year despite missing 19 games due to injuries last season and his eventual return will certainly bolster Florida’s top six.

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