Florida Panthers: Lines, Updates, Preview for March 6 Game vs. Columbus Blue Jackets
The Florida Panthers look to win their 10th game in their past 12 against a tough-to-beat Columbus Blue Jackets team.
FORT LAUDERDALE — The last time the Florida Panthers saw the Columbus Blue Jackets, it was an their emotional home-opener in October where they celebrated the lives of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau.
Columbus — who missed the playoffs last season — has since picked up the pieces to go 30-23-8 to sit in the top wild card spot in the Eastern Conference going into Game 61.
Through all of the emotions of losing such an impactful player and person, the Blue Jackets remained in the fight and have remained as one of the toughest teams to play this season.
“Credit to their players but they certainly have a coach of the year candidate [Dean Evason] for what they’ve been through,” coach Paul Maurice said.
“Any one of those events that they suffered alone, just the injuries that they’ve gone through, would be enough to sour a season.”
The Panthers saw that fight out of the Jackets early on in their 4-3 victory over them in that emotional home opener, but it has been something that has sustained itself in their style of play.
They play fast, they play hard and they will beat you in multiple different ways.
Led by Norris Trophy candidate Zach Werenski, who has 66 points in 60 games this season, Columbus has been the fifth-highest scoring offense in the NHL at 3.33 goals-for per game.
“There’s a reason for it, too,” Maurice said. “These guys are an interesting team. They’re not like most other teams. These guys will make playoffs off the rush to speed, they don’t necessarily slow their game down to it, so we wouldn’t call them a ‘dangle team.’
“They will make that play off the rush with speed, but they’ve kept a forechecking mentality, so they don’t force plays that they shouldn’t. They’re really good at deciding when they should try it and when they shouldn’t, and when they shouldn’t, they become a hard forechecking team. I’m not sure I’ve seen a team do it as well as these guys have done it in the past 20 games.”
Florida is looking to keep a stretch of nine wins in their past 11 games going, and it will be a challenge against that Blue Jackets team.
The Panthers currently sit in a deadlock with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the top seed in the Atlantic Division and each game is only going to get more important as they enter the stretch.
Columbus, meanwhile, is looking to hold onto its wild card spot in an Eastern Conference race where seven teams are within five points of each other.
“It was kind of like us a few years ago,” Sam Reinhart said. “The playoffs start now, especially for a team that’s right on the bubble, right on that wild card spot. You have to take advantage of that opportunity. You expect their best and we have to give it our best as well.”
THE NEWS
Sergei Bobrovsky will start in net for the Florida Panthers.
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 stream 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
Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich — Sam Bennett — Evan Rodrigues
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer — Tomas Nosek — Jonah Gadjovich
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola — Seth Jones
Nate Schmidt — Dmitry Kulikov
Sergei Bobrovsky
Vitek Vanecek
Scratched: Uvis Balinskis
Injured: Matthew Tkachuk (LTIR)
COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS PROJECTED LINEUP
Dmitri Voronkov — Adam Fantilli — Kirill Matchenko
James van Riemsdyk — Boone Jenner — Kent Johnson
Zach Aston-Reese — Justin Danforth — Mathieu Olivier
Yegor Chinakov — Sean Kuraly — Kevin LaBanc
Zach Werenski — Dante Fabbro
Denton Mateychuk — Ivan Provorov
Jake Christiansen — Damon Severson
Elvis Merzlinkins
Daniel Tarasov
(Lines via DailyFaceoff.com)
*Opposing team lines subject to change.