Panthers' Luongo skates, aiming for Thursday return

Florida Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo was on the ice Monday for the first time since he injured his shoulder during a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on March 3, according to the Miami Herald.

Luongo worked with goalie coach Robb Tallas and left before the Panthers came out to practice, leaving the nets to Dan Ellis and Sam Brittain. But the hope is Luongo can return Thursday against the Winnipeg Jets.

"It's no more than day-to-day," Panthers coach Gerard Gallant said, according to the Herald."[Thursday] is the goal and the hope but we'll see how he gets along."

Luongo said he wanted to be on the ice Monday just to get his body moving.

Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo (Photo: Getty Images)

"It was mostly just to get my legs going," he said, according to the Herald. "There really wasn't any action on the right side of my body. I wanted to feel the ice; it had been a few days and you don't want to be away from the ice too long because it makes it that much harder to come back.

"I would love to [play Thursday] but right now it's too early to tell. There's been some improvement over the past 24 hours but the next two days will be key to see if I'm able to play on Thursday. It's not comfortable but it has gotten better over the past 24 hours so that's encouraging."

Luongo was injured in the first period when a shot by the Maple Leafs' Leo Komarov hit him in the shoulder. Luongo finished the period but backup goalie Al Montoya started the second.

"It caught me in a spot at a weird angle," Luongo told the Herald. "I was turned sideways a little bit and caught me where there was no equipment. It was straight on."

When Montoya sustained a groin injury in the third there was a question of who would play goal for the Panthers. Tallas put his gear on and forwards Scottie Upshall and Derek MacKenzie also volunteered to play if Tallas wasn't allowed. The decision was made that MacKenzie would go in.

"We played rock, paper, scissors for it," Upshall told the Herald.

Instead Luongo returned from the Cleveland Clinic, where he had gone for further evaluation of his shoulder.

"I saw [Toronto] had tied the score and was like, 'Aw man,'" Luongo said. "So I transferred over to Twitter to see what was going on and all of a sudden saw they were going to put [MacKenzie or Upshall] in so I told doc, 'Step on it, we need to get back.' There was a lot of confusion on Twitter; I could only imagine what was going on in the locker room.

"I wasn't sure what was going to happen once I got back but when I saw [Tallas'] face I knew I better get dressed as quick as possible."

Luongo returned to the game with 9:08 left in the third period and made three saves in the Panthers' 3-2 loss.

"Obviously it was a situation where I could do a better job than Montoya because of his injury," Luongo said. "It was tough to watch him go through something like that. At least my legs were working. I went out there, tried to help out the team a little bit. Luckily there wasn't much action and the [pain-killing] shot had kicked in. I was feeling OK. I didn't use my arm too much, kept it guarded."