Florida Panthers: Lines, Updates, Preview for March 8 Game vs. Buffalo Sabres
The Florida Panthers exit a busy trade deadline searching for their sixth-straight victory.
FORT LAUDERDALE — The Florida Panthers and Buffalo Sabres cross paths after having very different trade deadline days.
Florida was the talk of the town on trade deadline day, again, acquiring Brad Marchand to add to a core that won the Stanley Cup — plus Seth Jones, who the team traded for on Saturday.
Marchand will not be making his debut on Saturday — he is expected to miss a couple weeks with an upper-body injury he sustained on March 1 — but the buzz surrounding his arrival is very much there.
“The front office has done an amazing job and everyone has confidence in management here,” A.J. Greer said. “It’s always less stressful when you’re doing well in the season coming around trade deadline day.
“I think everyone was excited to see what kind of pieces we were going to add to the puzzle, and now it’s just a matter of putting it all together, not changing a thing and really sticking to what we do best. I think we’ll be fine. They gave us the tools, now we gotta do the work.”
Buffalo, meanwhile, was a seller as it teeters towards missing the playoffs for the 14th season in a row. The Sabres sold off Dylan Cozens and Henri Jokiharu at the deadline, but did make a step towards building for next year by acquiring Josh Norris in the Cozens deal and extending forwards Jordan Greenway and Jason Zucker.
Make no mistake, the Panthers are not going to take the Sabres lightly. They know what to expect from them even with the new faces filtering in and out after the trade deadline.
Buffalo gave Tampa Bay a run for its money last time out — leading 5-3 in a game it ended up losing 6-5 on the back of a hat trick from Jake Guentzel — and the Panthers have been burned by them before.
The Sabres scored four-straight goals on the Panthers via a fast-paced attack and rode them to a 5-2 victory on Oct. 12.
“It won’t change their systems or the work that they do,” coach Paul Maurice said. “When they have new guys come in, they are going to see video on it. It’s the same as us — we have new guys out there.
“I think they have a plus-20 goal differential in the first period. They can score goals. If you’re off that game, then you got a real problem because they get to a point in their season where making the playoffs gets to be a challenge, so they’re making that pass, and they’re good players. They can make those plays.
“If you leave the ice for them to do that, then you’re going to have a long, painful night.”
The Panthers enter Saturday night in search of their sixth consecutive victory and their 10th win in their past 12 game, allowing just one goal in their past three games.
Buffalo, meanwhile, has scored the eighth-most goals (25) in the league since the NHL returned from the 4 Nations Break on Feb. 22, which includes an 8-2 victory over the New York Rangers.
“We want to play our game as hard as possible and compete as hard as possible and make sure those long stretch passes are not happening for them,” Aleksander Barkov said.
“That’s our game, that’s what we do best. We just gotta play our game and think about that.”
THE NEWS
Vitek Vanecek will start in net for the Florida Panthers.
Vanecek and Nico Sturm will both make their Florida debuts tonight against Buffalo after being acquired from the San Jose Sharks earlier this week.
Tonight’s game will start at 6:00 p.m. EST and will be broadcasted on Scripps Sports and Panthers Plus. Out-of-market viewers in the United States can stream the game on ESPN+.
For more information on how to catch Panthers games this season, visit nhl.com/panthers/info/how-to-watch.
CATCH UP WITH THE CHARLOTTE CHECKERS: Read Jayson Williams’ weekly check-in with the Checkers here!
FLORIDA PANTHERS PROJECTED LINEUP
Presented by William Raveis Real Estate
Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich — Sam Bennett — Evan Rodrigues
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer — Nico Sturm — Tomas Nosek
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola — Seth Jones
Nate Schmidt — Dmitry Kulikov
Vitek Vanecek
Sergei Bobrovsky
Scratched: Uvis Balinskis, Jonah Gadjovich
Injured: Matthew Tkachuk (LTIR), Brad Marchand (upper-body injury)
BUFFALO SABRES PROJECTED LINEUP
JJ Peterka — Jiri Kulich — Tage Thompson
Jordan Greenway — Josh Norris — Alex Tuch
Zach Benson — Ryan McLeod — Jack Quinn
Beck Malenstyn — Peyton Krebs — Sam Lafferty
Mattias Samuelsson — Rasmus Dahlin
Bowen Byram — Owen Power
Jacob Bryson — Connor Clifton
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
James Reimer
(Lines via DailyFaceoff.com)
*Opposing team lines subject to change.