Florida Panthers’ Aaron Ekblad expected to return Saturday

The Florida Panthers could get their most important defenseman back from injury sooner than they imagined.

According to a tweet Tuesday from the team account, coach Paul Maurice says Aaron Ekblad is “expected” to return to the starting lineup by Saturday, Nov. 12.

Ekblad, 26, has been out of the lineup since suffering a groin strain in Florida’s third game of the season on Oct. 17. After the injury, GM Bill Zito did indicate it was “not expected to be season ending,” but the very fact he had to clarify that implied a fairly lengthy recovery timeline. The Panthers even placed Ekblad on long-term injured reserve Oct. 19.

All that is to say: Ekblad returning to practice last week and rejoining the lineup as early as Saturday constitutes a best-case scenario playing out. This Saturday is the earliest date he’s even eligible to be activated from LTIR.

Getting Ekblad back would be a welcome sight for the Panthers after he’d missed significant chunks of time with leg injuries in 2020-21 and 2021-22. A broken leg cost him the last 21 games of the regular season plus the playoffs in 2020-21, and another leg injury cost him the last quarter of the 2021-22 regular season before he returned for the playoffs. Despite the time missed last season, he was still so dominant when healthy that he managed to finish sixth in Norris Trophy voting.

The Panthers are well off last season’s Presidents’ Trophy pace but are holding their own with a 7-5-1 record and have gone 5-4-1 in Ekblad’s absence so far. Gustav Forsling in particular has been forced to step up, especially after the team sent MacKenzie Weegar away as part of the offseason trade for Matthew Tkachuk. Forsling is playing 24:26 per game this season, more than three minutes north of the 21:13 he averaged last season.