The Florida Panthers are back in town after a rough four-game road trip.
Florida earned wins in two of their four outings over the past week, but more significantly, they are returning without a pair of key forwards in their lineup.
Panthers captain Sasha Barkov is out for another couple weeks after sustaining a lower-body injury during Florida’s loss in Ottawa last Thursday, and forward Matthew Tkachuk is expected to miss at least the next two games while battling an illness that has kept him out of the Cats past three outings.
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That’s the bad news.
The good news is that Florida has reeled off back-to-back victories while playing without Barkov and Tkachuk and now will be back on home ice in front of their amazing fans.
They’ll be home for the next three games, starting Thursday against the Vancouver Canucks followed by the Vegas Golden Knights coming to town on Saturday and the Minnesota Wild visiting Sunrise on Tuesday.
Vancouver arrived in South Florida still searching for their first victory of the young season.
The Canucks are currently 0-1-2, dropping back-to-back overtime games to Calgary and Philly on home ice before falling in Tampa on Tuesday.
Thursday’s game between the Cats and Nucks will be the first of two meetings in 2024-25.
Last season, Vancouver claimed victory in both games against Florida, defeating the Panthers 5-3 in Sunrise and 4-0 at Rogers Arena.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Thursday’s matchup with Vancouver:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Evan Rodrigues
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Sam Reinhart
A.J. Greer – Jesper Boqvist – Mackie Samoskevich
Jonah Gadjovich – Patrick Giles – Uvis Balinskis
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Nate Schmidt – Adam Boqvist
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