The Florida Panthers will make a quick stop at home Saturday before hitting the road again.
Fresh off a two-game roadie out West, the Panthers will play one of their fun little one-game homestands, hosting their old friends the Boston Bruins, before hitting the road again next week.
The Bruins arrive in South Florida desperate to turn their season around.
Boston is currently riding a six-game losing streak after losing 4-1 at Tampa on Tuesday.
Back when the NHL took its annual vacation, the Bruins were 19-13-4, just four points behind Florida for first place in the Atlantic Division.
Now, after a 1-7-0 streak, Boston is clinging to the top Wild Card spot and trying not to let its season slip away as teams begin to jostle for a playoff spot.
It looks like it could be a busy race in the Eastern Conference, as entering Saturday’s game, eight points separate the first Wild Card spot from last place in the East.
Saturday morning will be the third of four meetings between the two division rivals this season.
Florida is 2-0-0 against Boston so far in 2024-25.
The Panthers have eliminated the Bruins from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each of the last two years, including in 2023 when Boston won the Presidents’ Trophy with the best regular season of any team in NHL history .
Florida is hoping to have a fully healthy lineup Saturday, like it did Wednesday at Utah, but that might not be the case.
Speaking after the Cats’ practice Friday in Fort Lauderdale, Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said defenseman Aaron Ekbald would be a game-time decision and that he wasn’t the only player to able to bear this designation, as many of them suffer from individual illnesses.
In goal, Maurice said Florida will turn to starter Sergei Bobrovsky.
We’ll see how things develop for the non-traditional start time.
Here are Florida’s projected lines and pairings heading into Saturday’s battle against the Bruins:
Evan Rodrigues-Sasha Barkov-Sam Reinhart
Eetu Luostarinen – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Carter Verhaeghe – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist
AJ Greer – Tomas Nosek – Mackie Samoskevich
Gus Forsling-Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Dmitri Kulikov
Nate Schmidt – Uvis Balinskis
Stripes: Jonah Gadjovich, Adam Boqvist, Toby Bjornfot
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