Panthers chase playoff dreams, facing hot Sabres after a dominant win. Can they maintain momentum against a playoff team?
The Florida Panthers are looking to make a late-season playoff push, and they got things off to a solid start on Thursday night.
Hosting the Toronto Maple Leafs, a team Florida is chasing in the standings, the Panthers jumped out to a 3-0 lead en route to a strong 5-1 victory.
Now they’ll get right back to work, as the Cats finish up a quick back-to-back when they welcome the Buffalo Sabres to Sunrise.
Buffalo arrives in South Florida holding on to the second Wild Card spot, with 72 points through 58 games played. That puts them nine points ahead of the Panthers with the same amount of games remaining.
Boston, who holds the second Wild Card spot, remains eight points ahead of Florida after picking up a 4-2 victory over Columbus on Thursday.
It’s quite the mountain to climb.
Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice knows how difficult of a stretch it will be, and was enthused by what he saw on Thursday, knowing what a healthy Florida team is capable of.
“It’s a real easy thing to focus on,” Maurice said. “It’s not even distractions; When you’ve got a 4 Nations year, an Olympic year, everything is kind of out of control and your schedule is completed different. We obviously had so many injuries that affected us, and I think the normal distractions that come from winning, but now this is nice and clean for us.”
The Panthers will be looking to pick up on Friday against Buffalo where they left off the previous night when they dismantled the Maple Leafs.
Leading the way for Florida was their new-look top line of Evan Rodrigues centering Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart.
The trio combined for two goals and two assists on 14 shots on goal.
“Evan Rodrigues was pretty good tonight, pretty dynamic with that line,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “There’s an awful lot of speed the one side and some great hands on the other side. I thought the three guys just played off each other really well, found holes, supported the puck and made some really good plays.”
Outside of Daniil Tarasov stepping in for Sergei Bobrovsky on the second night of a back-to-back, don’t be surprised to see Maurice roll out the same lineup against the Sabres that took down Toronto last night.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Friday’s battle with Buffalo:
Carter Verhaeghe – Evan Rodrigues – Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
A.J. Greer – Cole Schwindt – Sandis Vilmanis
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Uvis Balinskis
Tobias Bjornfot – Jeff Petry
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Photo caption: Feb 2, 2026; Sunrise, Florida, USA; Florida Panthers center Carter Verhaeghe (23) moves the puck against the Buffalo Sabres during the third period at Amerant Bank Arena. (Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)