Florida’s panthers are about to enter the home section of their regular season.
After a nice four -day break between home matches, Florida is looking to start running out while welcoming the first of their last 11 games against Utah Hockey Club Friday evening in bringing Bank Arena from Sunrise.
Upon entering the game on Friday, the Panthers are tied at the top of the Atlantic division with the Maple Leafs of Toronto and Tampa Bay Lightning but lose against their northern neighbors during an equality break.
Cats and leafs hold identical records of 43-25-3, but due to Toronto having more non-shoot victories (42 to 38), the equality break. Tampa has the same number of points, but a game more played as Florida and Toronto.
But with 11 games to play for each team, things will surely change in the coming weeks.
Florida’s last game took place five days ago, a 4-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was the sixth consecutive victory of the panthers on the ice at home.
As for UTAH, the ancient coyotes arrive in southern Florida with their chances of the playoffs on support for life.
With only 10 games to play, UTAH is currently 10 points behind St. Louis for the last place of the Joker of the Western Conference.
However, it was a large second half of the season for Utah.
During their last 20 games, UTAH has points in all except seven of them (11-7-2). This includes their game Thursday evening, a break of 8-0 in the hands of the Lightning of Tampa Bay.
Now they will make Tampa’s short trip to the Sunrise and will conclude a consecutive set against a rested and hungry panthers team.
If all goes well, Florida will get a boost to its programming in the form of Brad Marchand.
The future temple of fame acquired by the panthers on the deadline for trade was spread after an injury which he suffered approximately a week before the conclusion of the agreement.
Marchand has been skating with Florida for several weeks and approaches a return.
If he plays, he will line up on the second line of the Cats with his old friend Sam Bennett and his recruit Mackie Samoskevich.
Here are the projected lines and the pairs of the panthers for Sunday confrontation with the pens:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich – Sam Bennett – Brad Marchand
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Evan Rodrigues
AJ Greer – Nico Sturm – Jesper Boqvist
Gus Forsling – Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola – Tobias Bjornfot
Nate Schmidt – Uvis Balinskis
Strages: Tomas Nosek, Jonah Gadjovich, Dmitry Kulikov
Latest Hockey News stories – Florida
Practice note: Trending to Panthers Beginnings, updates on Tkachuk, Kulikov
Brad Marchand could make his debut at Florida Panthers against Utah
