Panthers begin final road trip of regular season against Auston Matthews, Maple Leafs
Florida has a six-point edge over Toronto in the Atlantic Division standings
The Stanley Cup Playoffs are right around the corner, but first the Florida Panthers have one more road trip and one more homestand to get through.
First up is the roadie, and it starts with a fun little three-game-in-four-night stretch through Canada’s three eastern-most NHL cities.
The back-to-back kicks off Monday night in Toronto against a Maple Leafs squad that has been playing some decent hockey of late.
Toronto has won two straight and is 6-3-1 over its past 10 games, but trying to fend off the red-hot Tampa Bay Lightning is proving to be an increasingly difficult challenge.
While the Maple Leafs trail Florida by six points in the Atlantic Division with a game in hand, Tampa Bay has closed the gap between them and Toronto to just four points.
Leading the way for the boys in blue is scoring specialist Auston Matthews.
He leads the NHL with 60 goals and is currently riding a seven-game points streak in which he’s racked up 13 points.
Florida, meanwhile, will enter the week on the road with an opportunity to show that its rounding back into form ahead of the postseason, which is just a few short weeks away.
Saturday’s win over Detroit was just the second in eight games for Florida, which sits two points back of the Boston Bruins for first place in the Atlantic. Florida has a game in hand, and the two teams will meet in Boston on Saturday, the final game of the Cats’ road trip.
As for Florida and Toronto, they’ll meet twice over the final nine games of the regular season. The Cats and Leafs will face off in the Panthers’ regular season finale on April 16 in Sunrise.
Toronto plays game No. 82 the following night in Tampa Bay.
There is a lot that can happen between now and then, but those two games could prove to be pretty significant when it comes to Florida’s eventual first round playoff opponent.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings ahead of Monday’s battle with the Maple Leafs:
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Vladimir Tarasenko
Jonah Gadjovich – Kevin Stenlund – Ryan Lomberg
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Brandon Montour
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Dmitry Kulikov
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL1ZSmLYr30[/embed]
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