The dinner-related injuries keep on piling up in the National Hockey League. Just days after Jack Hughes cut his hand at a team event — which required surgery and will cost him eight weeks or more — Florida Panthers forward Eetu Luostarinen suffered an unfortunate mishap of his own.
Luostarinen is week-to-week after sustaining burns during a barbecue accident, head coach Paul Maurice told reporters on Wednesday. It's a disappointing update for many reasons, one being that the Panthers have already been riddled with injuries early on in the 2025-26 season.
The Finn now joins Sasha Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Dmitry Kulikov, Jonah Gadjovich and Tomas Nosek on the shelf. It's just a brutal stretch of luck for a Florida team that is 10-8-1 and currently on the outside looking in at the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
Luostarinen has managed three goals and 10 points over 18 games this season, mainly skating with team leading scorer Brad Marchand and countryman Anton Lundell in the top-six. That line has been terrific this year — as it was throughout the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs — but will now be split up for at least a couple of weeks.
Making matters worse, 24-year-old Cole Schwindt broke his arm in a collision with goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky during an 8-5 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night. He is expected to be out 2-3 months and will have surgery, Maurice confirmed. He's chipped in two goals in 10 games this year.
Mackie Samoskevich will get the first crack with Marchand and Lundell, while Sam Reinhart, Evan Rodrigues and Jesper Boqvist round out the top two lines. Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe are playing together on the third line amid challenging starts for both players.
Injuries taking a toll on Panthers, but there's a silver lining
The Panthers really needed Bennett and Verhaeghe to step up in the absences of some key forwards, but instead, the two have managed just 17 points combined in 38 contests.
It's mainly been Marchand (23 points in 18 games), Lundell (16 in 19) and Reinhart (16 in 19) picking up the slack. But no other forward on the roster has more than 10 points, which is concerning.
On the bright side, Tkachuk has begun skating and is reportedly targeting a return to the lineup in the next month. His season debut will be an enormous boost for the defending Stanley Cup champions, but until then, the Panthers will need to tread water with a hugely decimated group.
Florida is still playing at just above a .500 clip, but that pace will not be good enough to earn them a postseason berth in a crowded Eastern Conference.
Up next for the Panthers is a visit from the Jack Hughes-less New Jersey Devils on Thursday night; puck is set to drop just past 7:00 p.m. ET from Amerant Bank Arena.
