Panthers begin road trip visiting Rangers for first time since Eastern Conference Final

The last time the Florida Panthers skated at Madison Square Garden, they were winning Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final en route to their second straight appearance in the Stanley Cup Final.

Now, nearly five months later and with a Stanley Cup championship under their belts, the Cats are back at MSG to try and hand the New York Rangers their first regulation loss of the season.

The Rangers have stormed out of the gate this season, sitting atop the Metropolitan Division with a 5-0-1 record.

So far, they’ve been led by Artemi Panarin, no surprise there, who has six goals and 13 points in just six games.

Behind the Bread Man, New York still has not one, not two, but six players averaging a point per game or better: Vincent Trocheck and Adam Fox (seven points each), and Will Cuylle, Reilly Smith, Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere (all with six points).

You know who I didn’t mention? Chris Kreider, who has five goals on the season.

You know who else I didn’t mention? Igor Shesterkin. You can probably pencil him in as an early favorite for Vezina finalist.

So yeah, the Rangers are still very much a force to be reckoned with.

Not to say the Panthers are any slouch.

Even without Sasha Barkov, who has missed Florida’s past six games with a lower-body injury, Florida has still proven to be a formidable squad.

While the Cats last game was a stinker against Minnesota, it’s worth mentioning that the other game that Florida felt they were pretty bad in – a 5-2 loss in Buffalo back on Oct. 12 – the Cats followed it up with a 3-0-1 run despite playing with a shorthanded roster.

We’ll see how they respond this time, because it’s a darn good team they’ll be testing themselves against.

Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Thursday’s battle at the Garden:

Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Sam Reinhart

Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk

Evan Rodrigues – Jesper Boqvist – Mackie Samoskevich

A.J. Greer – Patrick Giles – Uvis Balinskis

Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov

Nate Schmidt – Adam Boqvist 

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