FORT LAUDERDALE — The Panthers will be without center Sam Bennett for at least the next week after he suffered an upper-body injury on Brandon Montour’s shot during Florida’s 3-2 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night, Panthers coach Paul Maurice said.
Fortunately for Maurice and the Panthers, the injury is not as severe as they initially feared.
“(He is) better than maybe we originally thought, but it’s going to be a week anyway,” Maurice said.
Maurice said Bennett, who scored the first goal of Tuesday’s game, will miss at least the next two games and will not travel with the team to Tampa for Games 3 and 4 on Thursday and Saturday, respectively, but when compared to what he was worried about, Maurice said he is relieved.
“Came to the rink fearing that it could be something more sinister and longer term,” Maurice said. “Got to the rink and got great news. So it’s kind of like you get a phone call that says your car has just been in a car accident, then you find out it’s just a little fender bender. You’re OK with that. … It’s all relative.”
Bennett suffered the injury on a Montour slapshot and left the ice, appearing to hold his wrist.
The team will have to shuffle its lines without Bennett available. Maurice said the team will move up Anton Lundell to fill the void on the second line. Kevin Stenlund will move to the third line to take Lundell’s place, Steven Lorentz will move to the center and Florida will add another forward.
“We have people to come in and play center; that’s not an issue,” Maurice said. “The silver linings of injuries is that we ran for the first 13 games of the year with both those defensemen and Sam out. We’ve played in playoff games with Bennett out, (Aleksander) Barkov out, so we have a pretty good template of what the lines look like.”
Maurice said Montour was upset about accidentally hurting his teammate.
“Everybody knows how hard they work, and everybody knows the pain isn’t the injury, it’s the idea of missing the playoffs,” Maurice said. “We just went from mid-August to here to get to this point, and that’s a tough pill to swallow. … He cares about his teammates, and it bothered him but he’s handled it the right way.”
Bennett was sixth on the team with 41 points during the regular season, scoring 20 goals and notching 21 assists. He has one goal and one assist in the first two playoff games.
“It’s happened many times in the playoffs when guys are out,” forward Vladimir Tarasenko said. “We are definitely going to miss him. He’s a huge part of the team. Great player, great guy. Wish him a speedy recovery.”
