"It's a big loss," Boughner said after Thursday's morning skate. "He's been one of our best players for the last month and a half. I thought he was playing some of his best hockey. Now, as a team, we've got to step up and make sure that we hold the fort and give Reims as much support as we can."
With Luongo out, the reigns have been passed to Reimer.
In 14 games this season, Reimer has posted a 4-6-3 record with a 3.67 goals-against average and a .892 save percentage. There have been significant signs of improvement in recent games, however, as the 29-year-old owns a 1-2-1 record with a .903 save percentage over his last four starts.
"It's too bad and it's real unfortunate," Reimer said. "Hopefully he can heal up quick and come back as soon as possible. In his absence, obviously, as a team we know what we've got to do. We're not happy with where we are. We've got to step up and hopefully string some wins together."
The Panthers (10-13-4) have points in back-to-back games, but have lost four of their last six overall. They currently trail the Montreal Canadiens by five points for third place in the Atlantic Division, but need to leapfrog over three other teams (Ottawa, Detroit, Boston) to get there.
Each of Florida's last two losses has come in overtime.
"It's just a matter of burying your chances at the right time," Boughner said. "I like our team in the shootout, but we just didn't get it done the other night [against New York]. The game could have easily gone our way, but it didn't. But today's a new day. We're playing a tough team tonight and we all know we have to be ready to try and get two points out of this team."
The Jets (17-7-4) are coming off a surprising 5-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday. They enter tonight's game boasting the league's fifth-ranked offense (3.35 goals per game) and third-ranked power play (26.73 percent). Patrik Laine has been lethal on the man advantage for Winnipeg this season, with nine of his 14 goals coming on the power play.
"We look forward to it," defenseman Aaron Ekblad said of the challenge. "I've been playing here for a good few years now, but I didn't always play against top lines. I look forward to the challenge every night of playing against top lines, playing against guys like Laine."
Although they currently rank 29th in the league on the penalty kill, Florida has been much better when down a man in recent weeks, allowing just four power-play goals over its last 11 games. Boughner said the team has been doing a much better job of executing the minutia of the penalty kill, such as clearing pucks, winning face-offs and getting big saves.
The Panthers hope those little things will add up to a big win against the Jets.
"There's a lot of little things, but I think most importantly it's the details," Boughner said.
