The injury bug has taken another chomp out of the Florida Panthers.
Head coach Paul Maurice told reporters on Thursday that defenceman Seth Jones suffered a broken foot on Wednesday against the Montreal Canadiens.
Maurice added that Jones' injury occurred in the second period but that the 31-year-old "gutted it out" and played through it until the end of the game. Jones finished what ended up as a 4-3 shootout loss with an assist through 31 shifts and 29:27 of ice time.
As far as an update goes, the Panthers' bench boss said "We'll get it looked at when we get back (to Florida)."
The team is in the midst of a five-game road trip, with two away games remaining in Ottawa and Toronto before heading back to Florida for the Panthers' last two contests of the regular season.
As for Jones, he joins a laundry list of injured players on the Panthers this season. The likes of Brad Marchand, Aleksander Barkov and Evan Rodrigues are on long-term injured reserve already, while other roster mainstays such as Aaron Ekblad, Dmitry Kulikov and Sam Reinhart are expected to miss the rest of the season with injuries of their own.
The back-to-back defending champions have understandably suffered because of the many absences, entering Thursday with a 37-37-4 record. Florida sits seventh in the Atlantic Division and has been eliminated from playoff contention.
As for Jones, the one-time all-star has put up 32 points (seven goals, 25 assists) through 52 games in his first full season with the Panthers. The veteran blue-liner was dealt to Florida from the Chicago Blackhawks mid-way through last season. He leads all defencemen on the Panthers roster in points and average time on ice.
