Ekblad's back for the home opener, and Seth Jones can finally breathe
Florida sent Alexander Petrovic to Charlotte without a game played, a clear sign Ekblad returns Saturday against Minnesota after two games away.
Seth Jones has spent the first week of the season pulling a double shift. That ends Saturday. Aaron Ekblad is expected back for the home opener against Minnesota, and the Panthers said so the cleanest way a team can: they sent Alexander Petrovic back to Charlotte on Thursday.
Petrovic got the call on Oct. 3 and never dressed. He's 34, this franchise drafted him in the second round in 2010, and he's the kind of depth defenseman every contender keeps in a drawer. You don't send your insurance policy back to the AHL two days before a game unless the house is fine.
Ekblad missed the last two games of the California trip for family reasons. That's all anybody needs to know about why. What matters on the ice is what his absence did to everybody else.
The number
27.7. That's Jones' average ice time through four games, per NHL data. He played about 29 minutes in the 1-0 opener at Carolina and close to 29 more in Anaheim. Those are playoff minutes, logged in the first week of October.
The load spread down the lineup too. By our count, Dmitry Kulikov played under 12 minutes in the opener, then almost 18 in Anaheim and more than 18 in Los Angeles once Ekblad was gone. Kulikov handled it like the pro he is. But this blue line was built to roll three pairs, not to ride one horse and pray.
Lineup watch
Ekblad played 20.3 and 21.6 minutes in his two games and picked up a point in San Jose. Put him straight back in the top four. That gives Paul Maurice a second right shot he trusts on the penalty kill and in the defensive zone, and it lets Jones come back down to earth.
My call: Jones plays under 25 minutes Saturday. If he doesn't, something's still wrong.
The forwards are the bigger puzzle. Aleksander Barkov is on long-term injured reserve for six to eight weeks, and Brad Marchand is day-to-day with a leg injury. Moving Petrovic opens a roster spot, and a forward call-up would make more sense than another body on defense right now.
Pabs' read
I've watched this team survive years when the third pair was a rumor, so two road losses don't scare me. Florida came home with two wins in four, and the defense allowed 15 shots in Raleigh and 20 in Los Angeles.
That's the identity, and Ekblad is a big piece of it. Get him back, give Jones a breather, and the cats can open the home schedule playing their way.
