The Florida Panthers are back on the road.
After a nice stop at the stand in southern Florida, the Panthers are now in Ohio, to take over their six -game road trip against the Blue Jackets of Hope of the playoffs.
Florida manages to look for things following a difficult start to their roadie.
Panthers lost three of the four during the trip, after consecutive defeats against Montreal Canadians and New York Icelanders.
They will also play without defender Dmitry Kulikov, who joins Matthew Tkachuk and Brad Marchand on the injured list after suffering an upper body injury against the Islanders who appointed him weekly.
Although it has missed several of their main players – Aaron Ekblad is also absent until the playoffs – Florida must find a way to continue to subscribe to points or decrease in a suddenly very competitive Atlantic division.
Upon entering the game Thursday, the Panthers are tied for the first time in the Atlantic with the Maple Leafs of Toronto, each holding 85 points and a two -point lead on Tampa Bay of third place.
As for Columbus, they have 70 points in the standings, as are the Icelanders and the Red Wings of Detroit.
This puts each team at three points behind Montreal for the latest joker of the Eastern Conference, with the New York Rangers also in the mixture, a point behind the Canadians.
No more recently than the beginning of March, the Blue Jackets held the best point of Joker, four points from the line of demarcation in the playoffs.
Since then, Columbus has only made 1-6-0 and during these six defeats, the Blue Jackets scored six goals in total.
Here are the projected lines and the pairs of the panthers for the shock of Thursday in Columbus:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich – Sam Bennett – Evan Rodrigues
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist
AJ Greer – Nico Sturm – Tomas Nosek
Gus Forsling – Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola – Tobias Bjornfot
Nate Schmidt – Uvis Balinskis
Stratches: Jonah Gadjovich, Brad Marchand, Dmitry Kulikov
Latest Hockey News stories – Florida
Florida Panthers Prospect Jack guess among 10 finalists for the Hobey Baker Prize
Dmitry Kulikov considered as weekly weekdays, so the panthers will rely on Tobias Bjornfot
Florida Panthers appointed finalist of the sports team of the year at Sports Business Journal Awards
Matthew Tkachuk spotted in the Elbo room to celebrate Saint-Patrick
Defender Tobias Bjornfot recalled by the panthers of Charlotte Checkers d’hl
