The Florida Panthers will wrap up the home portion of their regular season schedule on Monday night in Sunrise.
Playoff-bound for the sixth straight season, Florida will face the surprising New York Rangers at Amerant Bank Arena.
Yes, it’s quite surprising that last season’s Presidents’ Trophy winners failed to finish among the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference this year.
There will surely be questions to answer once the season is over for Rangers General Manager Chris Drury and Head Coach Peter Laviolette.
New York’s roster has too much talent for the team to have fallen so short of their goals, and it’s something that will need to be addressed in short order.
Florida, meanwhile, is wrapping up their regular season with another back-to-back set, heading up to Tampa Bay for what looks like a first-round preview on Tuesday night against the Lightning.
There is a four-point gap between first-place Toronto and second place Tampa, just as there is a four-point gap between third place Florida and fourth place Ottawa, and all four teams have two games to go.
So while it’s possible that we could see some movement in terms of potential playoff matchups, several things would have to fall into place for that to happen.
To be fair, it’s similar to how Florida ended up winning the Atlantic Division last year, finishing the regular season on a 5-0-1 run while the Boston Bruins backed into the playoffs losing three of four and ultimately their lead on the division.
We’ll see how things play out this time. Florida is expected to rest some regulars during the back-to-back in preparation for the postseason.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Monday’s rumble with the Rangers:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
Mackie Samoskevich – Tomas Nosek – Evan Rodrigues
A.J. Greer – Nico Sturm – Jesper Boqvist
Gus Forsling – Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt
Scratches: Sam Bennett, Jonah Gadjovich, Jesse Puljujarvi, Jaycob Megna, Rasmus Asplund, Matt Kiersted
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