Scary confidence: Why the returning Florida Panthers stars are joining a better team

It's hard to overstate how weird this season has felt in Sunrise. Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk being out early took away the club's north star, then the depth got squeezed even more when Seth Jones and Brad Marchand landed on injured reserve.

Paul Maurice said Saturday that Tkachuk and Marchand are fairly close, which matters because Florida has been living on lineup duct tape.

The Panthers are still banking wins, including that 5-2 result Saturday in Washington that felt like pure survival hockey.

Balinskis is the cleanest example of «next man up» actually working.

Once Jones went down, Uvis Balinskis climbed into a bigger matchup role with Niko Mikkola and started running the top power play looks, playing noticeably heavier minutes than his earlier depth usage.

The production spike is real, and the context matters.

Florida's own release says Balinskis has eight points in 36 games, and he just signed a two-year extension that keeps a cheap, puck-moving option in the mix.

You can feel fans buying in again when Balinskis walks the blue line and keeps pucks off shins.

He's not overhandling, he's taking the first lane, and that simplicity is exactly what a stressed roster needs.

Then there's A.J. Greer, a 29-year-old who plays like every shift is a tryout.

NHL numbers have him at 10 goals and 19 points in 47 games, and that's already right on top of the best scoring stretch of his career.

What I like is how his game fits Bennett's line.

Greer gets pucks deep, finishes checks, and still has enough legs to arrive in the slot on the second wave, which is where Florida has been manufacturing offense without its stars.

As Matthew Tkachuk and Brad Marchand re-enter the fold, they aren't returning to a team that's been treading water-they're joining a battle-hardened roster that is arguably deeper and more dangerous now than it was on opening night.