With another layoff between games, Panthers’ practice schedule ‘changing on the fly’

The Florida Panthers, through no fault of their own, were relegated to practice once again. Two more of their games had been postponed due to their opponents having COVID-19 related issues.

Coach Joel Quenneville decided to have some fun at the start of the team’s first of three newly added practices.

Twenty-eight guys on the ice at the BB&T Center, the full active roster and the taxi squad getting involved. A 20-minute 14-on-14 scrimmage. Two pucks in play at all times. Even taxi squad goaltender Philippe Desrosiers played as a skater for the blue team and scoring a goal against Sergei Bobrovsky (and got to keep the puck afterward).

There are no games for the Panthers right now, so Quenneville is doing what he can to keep his team fresh and avoid the repetitiveness that can come with frequent practice sessions.

“We wanted to change the format, be a little flexible as far as the monotony of practicing, practicing, practicing for training camp,” Quenneville said. “It’s kind of a fun drill we always keep in our pocket and try to go in there with it at the right time when you feel it’s a day to have a little bit of fun and get a little bit of work done on your individual skills after practice. ... Finding a little balance was today’s idea.”

The Panthers entered this 2021 NHL season assuming there would be some bumps in the road. The season, already shortened by 25 games and limited to only playing seven divisional opponents during the regular season, is being conducted under the cloud of a global pandemic. Postponements were to be expected at some point.

But less than two weeks into the season, the Panthers’ schedule has already been impacted twice — and neither was the team’s doing.

The NHL shut down the Dallas Stars before the season started due to a COVID-19 outbreak that at one point had as many as 17 players with positive tests and resulted in four games being postponed. Dallas plays its first game of the season Friday. Meanwhile, the Carolina Hurricanes currently have five players on the NHL’s COVID-19 related unavailable list and are paused through at least Saturday, causing three games to be postponed.

The only common denominator among these two sets of postponements: The Florida Panthers.

Florida was supposed to host Dallas for its first two games of the season. The Panthers also were supposed to be in Raleigh, North Carolina, for games on Thursday and Saturday.

Instead, the Panthers were back to practice sessions at the BB&T Center. The Panthers will hold another practice on Friday, scrimmage Saturday, take Sunday off and then practice Monday before flying to Columbus, Ohioi, for two games against the Blue Jackets starting Tuesday.

“Kind of changing on the fly here,” Quenneville said.

By the time they play that first game in Columbus, the Panthers will have held 16 practices and played just two games — wins against the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday (5-2) and Tuesday (5-4 in overtime).

And when they return, barring the NHL extending the regular season, Florida will play 54 regular-season games in 103 days.

“Obviously, it’s going to be challenging,” defenseman Aaron Ekblad said, “but I think it’s adapt and be successful or die. That’s the way it goes. We don’t want to die as a team here. We want to be malleable in situations like this and really just find a way to succeed no matter what because no matter what the schedule is, we have to go out. We have to play. We have to do what we can to succeed. There’s no other way of it going.”

Roster moves

The Panthers made a pair of roster moves on Wednesday, sending goaltender Sam Montembeault to AHL Syracuse, New York, and relegating defenseman Riley Stillman to the taxi squad. Taking Stillman off the active roster makes room for defenseman Markus Nutivaara, who will have to be added to the active roster soon now that he’s off the COVID protocol list. Off the Panthers’ fringe defensemen, Stillman is the only one who didn’t have to go through waivers to be placed on the taxi squad.