Panthers look to defend home ice as conference final shifts to South Florida

The Eastern Conference Finals are shifting scenes to Sunrise after the Florida Panthers escaped New York City with a two-game split against the top seeded Rangers.

Now the Panthers will look to make good with the home ice advantage they stole away from New York when they host Game 3 on Sunday afternoon at Amerant Bank Arena.

Florida has outscored the Rangers 4-2 during the first two games of the series, dropping Friday’s affair in overtime, a game that easily could’ve gone either way.

Overall, the defensive play of both squads has been able to stifle the high-end offense that each has been able to deploy during much of the postseason.

“Both teams are pretty good defensive teams,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “Their gaps are good, their sticks are good, and now, even if you were just an offensive team, it’s the conference finals so everyone is blocking shots, everyone is doing the hard things, so I think you’re gonna see the game break loose for five or six minutes.”

Maurice has been rolling with the same lineup for the past few games, but it wouldn’t be shocking to see him make a little tweak following the loss in Game 2.

Considering how well Ryan Lomberg has looked during the past two games – his line as a whole, really – it’s hard to see any of them coming out of the lineup, but we’ll see how Maurice wants to play it.

He has some very hungry and capable options that he could plug into that fourth line in Kyle Okposo and Steven Lorentz.

For now, we’ll keep the status quo with the projected lines and pairings, but you’ve been warned not to be surprised if something looks a little different on Sunday afternoon.

Vladimir Tarasenko – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart

Carter Verhaeghe – Anton Lundell – Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinen – Sam Bennett – Evan Rodrigues

Ryan Lomberg – Kevin Stenlund – Nick Cousins

Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola – Brandon Montour

Oliver Ekman-Larsson- Dmitry Kulikov

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