The Florida Panthers will be without a key defenseman for their Saturday afternoon game against the Boston Bruins.

Aaron Ekbald is out for the second time in three games due to an undisclosed injury he sustained late in the third period on Jan. 3 against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

After sitting out Florida’s loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday, Ekblad played just over 24 minutes on Wednesday against the Utah Hockey Club.

But Panthers coach Paul Maurice pregame Saturday said team is being “careful” with one of their top defensemen as the ailment continues to nag at him.

“There’s nothing sinister long-term,” Maurice said. “He played the other night. I thought he played very well with it. The question is how many times to we want to do that? We got to let his thing heal.”

In 41 games this season, Ekblad has 20 points (two goals, 18 assists) while averaging just over 23 and a half minutes of ice time.

With Ekblad out, Tobias Bjornfot drew into the lineup as Florida’s sixth defenseman. Also, Dmitry Kulikov took Ekblad’s spot on the Panthers’ top defense pairing with Gustav Forsling. Uvis Balinskis or Nate Schmidt will most likely take on Ekblad’s role on Florida’s top power-play unit.