Tortorella was adamant that Panarin was not being held out because of any reasons related to the upcoming trade deadline, which is Feb. 25.
"He's very sick," the head coach said. "That's why he's out. ... I was told he's sick, not eating, he's puking."
Anthony Duclair, a Quebec native who was a healthy scratch last night in a 5-1 loss to Tampa Bay, will slot into the lineup in Panarin's place.
With Panarin out, Tortorella said, "You need to play under a team concept. I want us to build off of our first two periods of last night's game. As bad as the score looks, I liked what we did away from the puck. I liked just our jam, our mind-set."
Columbus and Montreal both enter the game with 69 points on the season; through tiebreakers, the Blue Jackets are third in the Metropolitan Division race, while Montreal holds the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race.
In other personnel news, with Ryan Murray out after suffering an upper-body injury a night ago, Dean Kukan will slot into the lineup. Sergei Bobrovsky will be in net, and Brandon Dubinsky returns to the lineup. He has been out since Feb. 2 after suffering a hip injury.
"It is what it is," Tortorella said of the injuries. "I'm not too interested in being happy in not having Murr and Bread, but that's what it is, so you play. You rely more on your structure. I think you rely more on being simple when you lose two cogs like that, and you get about it. It happens to every team. We have to find a way."
