Jonah Gadjovich to Return to Lineup; Samoskevich Scratched
Jonah Gadjovich will make his return to the Florida Panthers lineup after back spasms have kept him out of the lineup since Oct. 1
Jonah Gadjovich will return from a seven-game absence when the Florida Panthers take on the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday night.
The big, physical forward has been out of the lineup since leaving the team’s game on Oct. 19 against the Vegas Golden Knights after “tightening up” early in the first period. It turned out to be back spasms, which he has been working his way back from ever since.
He will be replacing rookie Mackie Samoskevich in the lineup and will be on the fourth line alongside A.J. Greer and Tomas Nosek.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice said this was not an indictment on the 21-year-old’s play — he does have two goals and an assist in his past four games — but he did want to get the enforcer back in the lineup against a heavy, physical team in Philadelphia
“For me, Samo is trending up in the right direction, and consistently,” Maurice said. “The points are there, the hands are there, the speed is there. We know that. He missed training camp and he is starting to become more and more consistent in what he does. That’s the key piece to our team is that we’ve got different guys. [Carter] Verhaeghe’s game is completelydifferent to [Eetu] Luostarinen’s game or [Aleksander] Barkov’s game, they’re all different. But there’s a handful of things that they do the same way, or their mindset is the same, like Sam Bennett finishes a check in the corner a different way than Sam Reinhart does, but the puck is still in the corner when it’s done right.
“He’s learning that, and he’s ahead of where I thought he would be at this time, so I am very happy with it. There are different styles. Philly is gonna be a heavy game tonight, Jonah has worked really hard to get back, we really liked where he was when he went down, so I wanted him in the game tonight.
“It may not always be Mackie that comes out, but he’s in a really good spot and we’d like to get Jonah back to that as well.”
THE NEWS
Sergei Bobrovsky will start in net on Saturday night against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Today’s game will air at 7:00 p.m. EST on Scripps Sports and Panthers Plus. It will also be available for streaming on ESPN+ for those outside of the Panthers’ broadcast territory.
For more information on how to catch this afternoon’s game, visit nhl.com/panthers/info/how-to-watch.
PANTHERS PROJECTED LINEUP
Evan Rodrigues — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer — Tomas Nosek — Jonah Gadjovich
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov
Nate Schmidt — Uvis Balinskis
Sergei Bobrovsky
Spencer Knight
Scratched: Adam Boqvist, Mackie Samoskevich
PHILADELPHIA FLYERS PROJECTED LINEUP
Owen Tippett — Morgan Frost — Bobby Brink
Anthony Richard — Morgan Frost — Bobby Brink
Joel Farabee — Scott Laughton — Tyson Foerster
Nicolas Deslauriers — Noah Cates — Garnet Hathaway
Travis Sanheim — Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler — Rasmus Ristolainen
Emil Andre — Egor Zamula
Ivan Fedotov
EBUG
(Lines from Thursday’s game in Tampa, staring goalie/lineup changes TBA at 6 p.m.)
