Florida Panthers: Lines, Updates, Preview for April 1 Game vs. Montreal Canadiens
The Florida Panthers look to avoid getting swept — both in the season series and in the two-game home-and-home set — by the Montreal Canadiens.
The Florida Panthers may very well be entering one of the most important stretches of the season — and it all starts against a team that has been a thorn in their side all year.
Entering Tuesday night, Florida sits three points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs for first place in the Atlantic Division with a game in hand.
The Panthers kick off a set of back-to-back games with a meeting with the Montreal Canadiens before they head off to Toronto to square off in what could be a showdown for sole possession of first place in the division.
They will have to take care of business against Montreal first, which is easier said than done this year.
After a few years of being an easy out, that is no longer the case for the Canadiens. They currently hold the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference at 34-3-9 (77 points) and have beaten the Panthers all three times they have played them this year.
That includes a 4-2 victory against Florida in Sunrise in the first half of the home-and-home set on Sunday.
The Panthers stayed in it for most of the game on Sunday — answering two go-ahead goals in the first two periods before Nick Suzuki struck with a third that they could not fight their way back from — and hope to build on that on Tuesday night.
“We can take good things from these games,” Aleksander Barkov said after the game on Sunday. “I think we still did a lot of good things in this game. If we can do the same thing for 60 minutes, we will be better than today and will have a great chance to win. That’s all we want to think about.”
THE NEWS
Vitek Vanecek will start in net for the Panthers tonight.
Matthew Tkachuk and Dmitry Kulikov joined the team for the upcoming four-game road trip and will begin skating with the team. Neither player is expected to return to the lineup during the trip.
Kulikov is expected to return sometime during the upcoming homestand while Tkachuk, who was placed on long-term injured reserve last month, is not expected to be back until the postseason.
Tonight’s game will start at 7:00 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 NHL Network.
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
Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich — Sam Bennett — Brad Marchand
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer — Nico Sturm — Evan Rodrigues
Gustav Forsling — Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola — Nate Schmidt
Tobias Bjornfot — Uvis Balinskis
Vitek Vanecek
Sergei Bobrovsky
Scratched: Tomas Nosek, Jonah Gadjovich
Suspended: Aaron Ekblad
Injured: Matthew Tkachuk (LTIR), Dmitry Kulikov (upper-body injury)
MONTREAL CANADIENS PROJECTED LINEUP
Cole Caufield — Nick Suzuki — Juraj Slafkovsky
Emil Heineman — Alex Newhook — Patrik Laine
Josh Anderson — Christian Dvorak — Brendan Gallagher
Michael Pezzetta — Jake Evans — Joel Armia
Mike Matheson — Alexandre Carrier
Kaiden Guhle — Lane Huston
Jayden Struble — David Savard
Samuel Montembeault
Jakub Dobes
(Lines via DailyFaceOff.com)
*Opposing team lines subject to change.