Florida expected to get Matthew Tkachuk (illness) back in the lineup for first time in five games
The Florida Panthers are set to wrap up their three-game homestand in what should be a good matchup of two teams that play similar styles of hockey.
Florida will welcome the Minnesota Wild to Amerant Bank Arena for what will be the Cats last home game for more than two weeks.
Later this week, Florida will hit the road for three games against the three New York teams before heading overseas for a pair of games in Tampere, Finland against the Dallas Stars.
By then, the shorthanded Panthers are expected to be back at full strength, having played the past five games without Sasha Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, and the entire season without Tomas Nosek.
Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice has said that Barkov and Nosek should both be in the lineup for the Finland games, if not sooner.
Tkachuk, on the other hand, could be on the ice Tuesday against Minnesota.
“I’m going to assume, based off what I saw in practice, that he plays tomorrow,” Maurice said of Tkachuk after Wednesday’s practice at the Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale.
As for the Wild, they should provide the Panthers a sound test.
Much like the Panthers, Minnesota can play a defensive, in-your-face style that frustrates the heck out of their opponents.
“They play hard,” Maurice said of the Wild. “They’ve got a little bite in their game. I think the Wild and Vancouver play a game similar to us, in terms of the intensity on pucks and the value of physicality, the bite in their game. They have some really high-end guys with some fine skill, and then they’ve got some hard players that are going to grind.”
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Tuesday’s tilt with the Wild:
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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