Panthers without Reinhart, Mikkola, Greer for G4

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers will be without a trio of injured players for Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals on Monday night, as they look to sweep the Carolina Hurricanes and advance to their third straight Stanley Cup Final.

Top-line forward Sam Reinhart will miss his second straight game with a lower-body injury suffered on a hit from Carolina center Sebastian Aho in Game 2. Defenseman Niko Mikkola will miss the game after slamming his shoulder hard into the end boards midway through the third period of their Game 3 win. Fourth-line forward A.J. Greer, who was also injured in Game 3, will be out of the lineup as well.

Florida coach Paul Maurice said all three players are “day-to-day.”

“I would expect, hopefully, at some point in this series they’ll be able to come back in,” he said. “But the determination is the three guys that I put in will perform better than those men would tonight.”

Jesper Boqvist set the bar high for injury replacements in Game 3. He drew in for Reinhart, playing alongside captain Aleksander Barkov on the top line. He had a goal and two assists, scoring a critical third-period goal that broke a 1-1 tie and sent the Panthers on a five-goal rampage over the next 10 minutes and 11 seconds.

Defenseman Uvis Balinskis will slot in for Mikkola. He played 76 games in the regular season and another four games in the playoffs, averaging 12:05 per game. He did see limited time in the regular season with Seth Jones, who had been Mikkola’s partner.

The Panthers will miss Mikkola, who has six points in 15 games and has been outstanding on both ends of the ice. Maurice compared it to the team missing defenseman Aaron Ekblad for four games of the postseason.

“We’re going to miss [Niko]. But Uvis Balinskis has been a player that’s come in and played exceptionally well,” Maurice said.

The coach said he agonized over leaving Balinskis out of the lineup when the playoffs started.

“We’ll get an excited guy in the lineup tonight. He doesn’t deserve to be watching hockey games. His play says he deserves to be playing games,” Maurice said.

Veteran forward Nico Sturm draws in for Greer on the team’s fourth line with Tomas Nosek and Jonah Gadjovich. Greer had three points in 11 games for the Panthers, skating 8:05 per game on average. Strum had no points in his seven appearances, averaging 9:16 per game.

The Panthers are trying to sweep the Hurricanes in the conference finals for the second time in three seasons, having outscored them 16-4 in three wins. Barkov said the defending Stanley Cup champions have learned a lot about closing out series over their past three runs to the conference finals.

“Just don’t think too much ahead,” he said. “You just treat it as another game. We’re always prepared to give our best every single game and we learn from every game. Now we have another great chance tonight.”