The Florida Panthers will get a boost on their blue line Tuesday when they take on the Vancouver Canucks (7 p.m. PT / 10 p.m. ET on Sportsnet Pacific and Sportsnet+).
Defenceman Seth Jones will return to the lineup for the first time since Jan. 2, when he went down with an upper-body injury.
Florida went 12-14-0 in the veteran's absence.
“He was the big piece that went down,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said Tuesday, per NHL.com. “We survived (all our other injuries) because of him for the longest time. You just look at our analytics, when he came out of the lineup, it changed the way we looked and played. Everybody is excited to get him back.”
The injury also forced Jones to miss the Olympics for Team USA, where he was replaced by Anaheim Ducks defenceman Jackson LaCombe.
To accommodate Jones' return, Niko Mikkola will slide out of Florida's lineup.
Jones was injured during the Winter Classic against the New York Rangers when he took a shot up high early in the first period and was forced to exit the contest.
Over his first 40 games of the season, the 31-year-old Jones had six goals and 18 assists while logging a team-high 23:29 of ice time per contest.
A veteran of 13 NHL seasons, Jones landed with the Panthers at last year's trade deadline in a deal with the Chicago Blackhawks. He went on to provide Florida's D-corps with a significant boost on its way to a Stanley Cup victory.
The Panthers enter Tuesday's action at the bottom of the Atlantic Division and well out of the playoff race in the Eastern Conference at 33-30-3.
