Panthers aim to rebound from a deflating loss in Anaheim against a tough Kings team in LA, a place where Brad Marchand has seen a good amount of success.
The Florida Panthers will look to bounce back from a tough start to their road trip when they face the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night.
Florida dropped their trip opener to the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday by an embarrassing final score of 7-3, a game that the Cats were actually leading 3-2 midway through.
Now they’ll look to get back on the winning side of thins against a Kings squad that, much like the Panthers, are working their way through an inconsistent start to the season.
Los Angeles started the season with only one win over their first six outings, but since then they’ve gone 5-1-2.
Overall, the Kings have only four regulation losses through 14 games, which isn’t bad at all.
As for the Panthers, they got right back to work on Wednesday following Tuesday’s loss to the Ducks.
Florida held a practice at the Kings’ training facility, the Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo, where the theme seemed to be getting back to the basics.
“We’ve played hard games in LA, and I expect that (tomorrow),” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “I’d like to see us get back to that a little bit. We worked on some things today at practice that we just didn’t have enough of in our game last night.”
A Panthers player who has seen a good amount of success during his career in Los Angeles is the same guy who paces the team in scoring so far this season: Brad Marchand.
Through 12 games, Marchand leads all Panthers with 7 goals and 13 points. He’s currently riding a five-game point streak in which he’s accumulated 4 goals and 7 points.
Over the course of his career, Marchand has racked up 16 goals and 26 points over 23 games in Los Angeles, including a plus-19 on-ice rating. He’s also riding a five-game point streak in Los Angeles, with 5 goals and 10 points during the run.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Thursday’s tilt with the Kings:
Carter Verhaeghe – Evan Rodrigues – Sam Reinhart
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
Jesper Boqvist – Sam Bennett – Mackie Samoskevich
A.J. Greer – Cole Schwindt – Noah Gregor
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Seth Jones
Dominic Sebrango – Jeff Petry
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Photo caption: Oct 16, 2025; Newark, New Jersey, USA; Florida Panthers center Evan Rodrigues (17) celebrates his goal against the New Jersey Devils during the first period at Prudential Center. (Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images)