Florida Panthers: Lines, Updates, Preview for April 15 Game vs. Tampa Bay Lightning
The Florida Panthers will rest their stars against likely Round 1 opponent Tampa Bay Lightning in their final game of the regular season.
With a regulation loss on Monday night, the Florida Panthers will officially start the postseason on the road. Which, regardless of how it affects Atlantic Division seeding, renders Florida’s match-up with the Tampa Bay Lightning meaningless for the Panthers themselves.
The Panthers are expected to scratch Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Gustav Forsling, Carter Verhaeghe, Dmitry Kulikov and Sam Bennett to avoid playing them on back-to-back nights ahead of the postseason.
This game still has bearing of who Florida’s playoff opponent will be, but Tampa Bay would need some help to jump the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Eastern Conference standings.
On top of a win on Tuesday night, Tampa Bay would need to defeat the New York Rangers in their regular season finale on Thursday and for the Maple Leafs to lose their final two games against the Buffalo Sabres (Tues.) and the Detroit Red Wings (Thurs.)
Essentially, any one of a Toronto win or a Tampa Bay loss would lock Florida into a first-round series against the Lightning.
Even with their stars out of the lineup, the Panthers have a chance to have some bearing over who they get to play — but the Lightning are not holding back.
Tampa Bay is expected to dress a full roster even after losing Oliver Bjorkstrand to an injury that will keep him out week-to-week.
“We're not in a position where we can rest players or sit guys out,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper told reporters. “Our job is to make sure we're putting ourselves in the best position to start Sunday or whenever we're going to play.”
THE NEWS
Vitek Vanecek will likely start in net for the Panthers tonight.
Tonight’s game will start at 7:30 p.m. EST and will be broadcasted on Panthers Plus. It can also be streamed on the Panthers Plus app for local viewers. It will also be broadcasted to a national audience 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
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand
Mackie Samoskevich — Evan Rodrigues — Jesper Boqvist
Rasmus Asplund — Nico Sturm — Jesse Puljujarvi
A.J. Greer — Tomas Nosek — Jonah Gadjovich
Nico Mikkola — Seth Jones
Nate Schmidt — Uvis Balinskis
Jaycob Megna — Matt Kiersted
Vitek Vanecek
Sergei Bobrovsky
Scratched: Gustav Forsling, Dmitry Kulikov, Carter Verhaeghe, Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett
Suspended: Aaron Ekblad
Injured: Matthew Tkachuk (LTIR)
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING PROJECTED LINEUP
Yanni Gourde — Brayden Point — Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel — Anthony Cirelli — Jake Guentzel
Conor Geekie — Nick Paul — Jake Guentzel
Darren Raddysh — Zemgus Girgensons — Mitchell Chaffee
Victor Hedman — J.J. Moser
Ryan McDonagh — Erik Cernak
Emil Lilleberg — Nick Perbix
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Jonas Johansson
(Lines via DailyFaceOff.com)
*Opposing team lines subject to change.