The Panthers, fresh off a dominant road trip, return home to face a surging Utah squad.
Fresh off an extremely successful road trip, the Florida Panthers are set to play their second one-game homestand in as many weeks.
Florida picked up wins in each of the three games they played away from South Florida and after making up some valuable ground in the playoff race, they’re now back home to face the Utah Mammoth.
Entering play Tuesday, the Panthers sit four points back of Montreal and Boston, who hold the two Wild Card spots in the Eastern Conference, and four points behind Buffalo for third place in the Atlantic Division. Florida has two games in hand on Boston and one on Montreal.
After dropping four of five games when the calendar flipped to 2026, the Panthers seemed to have righted the ship.
Florida is 6-2-0 since the rough stretch, and interestingly enough, all six of those wins have come on the road as all but one of those eight matchups were on home ice.
Thanks to the Cats' road-heavy schedule this month, it's actually been over three weeks since their last win on home ice, a 2-1 triumph over Colorado back on Jan. 4.
Tuesday's game against Utah will only be Florida's second game at Amerant Bank Arena since then.
As for the Mammoth, they arrive in South Florida having played some of their best hockey of the season recently.
Utah had won five straight and eight of nine before stumbling on Monday night in Tampa Bay, losing 2-0 to the Lightning.
Now the Mammoth will try to rebound on the second night of a back-to-back, facing a Panthers squad fresh off playing three road games in four nights.
While Florida is only playing the one game at home before heading back on the road, this time it’s just a one-stop trip, a quick visit to Matthew Tkachuk’s hometown of St. Louis on Thursday.
Overall, Tuesday against the Mammoth will be the first of four home games over the next eight days for Florida, the last two of which will come against teams they are chasing in the playoff race: Buffalo and Boston.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Tuesday’s matchup with the Mammoth:
Carter Verhaeghe – Evan Rodrigues – Sam Reinhart
Sandis Vilmanis – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
A.J. Greer – Cole Schwindt – Mackie Samoskevich
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Uvis Balinskis
Tobias Bjornfot – Jeff Petry
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Photo caption: Dec 10, 2025; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Florida Panthers left wing A.J. Greer (10) and Utah Mammoth defenseman Nate Schmidt (88) plays for the puck during the first period at Delta Center. (Rob Gray-Imagn Images)