Florida Panthers: Lines, Updates, Preview for April 5 Game vs. Ottawa Senators
Florida Panthers look to lock up a playoff spot in Ottawa without Aleksander Barkov in the lineup.
The Florida Panthers will look to clinch a playoff spot without captain Aleksander Barkov in the lineup on Saturday afternoon.
For the Panthers to clinch a playoff spot today, they would need to either beat the Ottawa Senators in any fashion or lose in overtime with the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens suffering losses. Montreal would need to lose in regulation.
If Florida loses in regulation, it could still clinch a spot. New York would have to lose to the New Jersey Devils in regulation and the Columbus Blue Jackets would have to lose to the Toronto Maple Leafs in any fashion.
The Panthers will look to secure that playoff spot on their own without their captain.
Barkov is expected to miss both games of this weekend’s back-to-back with an upper-body injury he sustained on Tuesday night in Montreal. He is listed as day-to-day and is not expected to be out long-term.
He joins an injury report that already has Matthew Tkachuk and Dmitry Kulikov and Nico Sturm on it.
Ottawa will likely be without its captain, Brady Tkachuk, in this one. He has been out of the lineup since sustaining an upper-body injury on March 30. The Senators are 1-1-0 without Tkachuk so far, dropping a game to the Sabres before beating Tampa Bay in regulation.
Florida jumbled up its lines after Thursday’s loss to Toronto with Barkov out of the lineup.
Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart will join forces on the top line while Brad Marchand slots in next to Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen.
THE NEWS
Sergei Bobrovsky will start in net for the Panthers tonight.
Tonight’s game will start at 2:00 p.m. EST and will be broadcasted on Scripps Sports and Panthers Plus. Out-of-market viewers in the United States can watch the game on ESPN+.
For more information on how to catch Panthers games this season, visit nhl.com/panthers/info/how-to-watch.
FLORIDA PANTHERS PROJECTED LINEUP
Presented by William Raveis Real Estate
Jesper Boqvist — Sam Bennett — Sam Reinhart
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand
Carter Verhaeghe — Evan Rodrigues — Mackie Samoskevich
A.J. Greer — Tomas Nosek — Jonah Gadjovich
Gustav Forsling — Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola — Nate Schmidt
Jaycob Megna — Uvis Balinskis
Sergei Bobrovsky
Vitek Vanecek
Scratched: N/A
Suspended: Aaron Ekblad
Injured: Matthew Tkachuk (LTIR), Dmitry Kulikov (upper-body injury), Aleksander Barkov (upper-body injury), Nico Sturm
OTTAWA SENATORS PROJECTED LINEUP
Fabian Zetterlund — Tim Stutzle — Claude Giroux
David Perron — Dylan Cozens — Drake Batherson
Ridly Grieg — Shane Pinto — Michael Amadio
Matthew Highmore — Adam Gaudette — Angus Crookshank
Jake Sanderson — Artem Zub
Thomas Chabot — Nick Jensen
Tyler Kleven — Nikolas Matinpalo
Linus Ullmark
Anton Forsberg
(Lines via DailyFaceOff.com)
*Opposing team lines subject to change.