Panthers Welcome Stanley Cup Champion Back to Lineup

The injury riddled team has reinforcements coming

Florida Panthers left wing Tomas Nosek (92) looks on after scoring against the Toronto Maple Leafs during the second period in game three of the second round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Amerant Bank Arena. Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images / Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

As the NHL season quickly winds down, the Florida Panthers are finally starting to get healthy. On Tuesday, they’ll get back one of their Stanley Cup champions for the first time this season. 

Forward Tomas Nosek will make his season debut on Tuesday night against the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center, Panthers head coach Paul Maurice announced.

Nosek, 33, has been shelved all year after having offseason surgery for a knee injury he sustained during training. 

The Czechia native was Florida’s main fourth-line center during the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, appearing in 16 games during the postseason, including all six Stanley Cup Final games against the Edmonton Oilers. 

Nosek is expected to return to the fourth-line on Tuesday, with his fellow 2025 Cup champion line-mate AJ Greer, and rookie Sandis Vilmanis. 

Here’s what I saw during first rushes this morning. Tkachuk likely in Boqvist’s spot.

Luostarinen - Lundell - Reinhart
Verhaeghe - Rodrigues - Marchand
Samoskevich - Bennett - Boqvist
Vilmanis - Nosek - Greer

Forsling - Ekblad
Mikkola - Balinskis
Bjornfot - Kulikov

— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) March 3, 2026

Last year (2024-25) was Nosek’s first season with the Panthers. In 59 regular season games he totaled nine points (1 goal, 8 assists), then put up another three assists in 16 playoff appearances, before winning the first Stanley Cup of his career. 

Liking what they got out of Nosek, the Panthers re-signed him to a one-year, $775K deal on July 1.

Tuesday will be the first game he played on that contract, and also his first appearance since Florida’s championship clinching win in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Losers of two straight, and sitting eight points out of the final Eastern Conference Wild Card spot, the struggling Panthers will be happy to welcome back a veteran like Nosek to the lineup.

In his absence, the Panthers have used multiple players as the fourth-line center: Cole Schwindt (on IR with a lower-body injury), Luke Kunin (sent down to AHL Charlotte on Monday) and Jesper Boqvist (healthy scratched multiple times this season) were those who saw the most game time in that spot. 

Nosek is the second veteran to return to the Panthers lineup over the past few days

Defenseman Dmitry Kulikov returned to action on Sunday night in Florida’s 5-4 loss to the New York Islanders after missing 57 straight games with a shoulder injury, which he sustained in the second game of the season. 

“That’s a hard rehab [for] both those men,” Paul Maurice said of Kulikov and Nosek. “It’s painful at the start, the conditioning that happens at the end is mentally very difficult to do. Now I want them to have a little bit of fun. Really I give both of them credit, they worked so hard to get back and it was not easy on them, so I want them to get out there and feel good because we certainly feel good having them back in our lineup.”

“They are big pieces of our locker room and our team, ” Panthers forward Anton Lundell said about the return of Kulikov and Nosek on Tuesday. “It always brings a little extra energy when you get guys back. We are happy to have them back.”

The Panthers (30-27-3) have 22 games remaining as they enter Tuesday night’s matchup against the Devils (29-29-2).

Sergei Bobrovsky gets the net for the 7 p.m. ET puck drop from the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ.  

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