Panthers looking to string some wins together, set to host lowly Blackhawks
Sergei Bobrovsky will be back in goal after shutting out Los Angeles on Wednesday
Hey look, another back-to-back!
That’s right, the Florida Panthers are playing another back-to-back set of games this weekend.
At least this time they’re both on home ice.
It also helps that Saturday’s matchup with the Chicago Blackhawks is an early 1 p.m. puck drop, giving quite a bit more time for the Panthers to rest and recover before they host the New York Islanders 29 hours later.
Florida opened their homestand with a 3-0 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night, their fifth win in eight outings.
Now they’ll welcome a Blackhawks squad that is enduring another frustratingly disappointing season.
Over the past three weeks, Chicago has lost eight of their 10 games, though the wins came against Vegas and in Tampa.
The only team in the NHL with fewer points than the Blackhawks is San Jose.
As one might expect, Connor Bedard paces the Hawks in scoring, racking up 15 goals and 45 points in his 51 games this season.
Tyler Bertuzzi leads Chicago with 17 goals, and while Petr Mrazek saw the majority of the starts in goal early in the season, Arvid Soderblom has seen his game grow over the course of the year and now the two are in an apparent timeshare.
Since the start of December, the only time the Blackhawks tendies have not alternated starts is when one of them wins a game.
That’s why Mrazek will be in goal against Florida on Saturday, as Soderblom started each of the past two: Tuesday’s win in Tampa Bay and Thursday’s loss in Carolina.
The Panthers will go with Sergei Bobrovsky between the pipes, fresh off the veteran’s 29-save shutout against Los Angeles on Wednesday.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Saturday’s battle with the Blackhawks:
Carter Verhaeghe– Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Matthew Tkachuk – Sam Bennett – Mackie Samoskevich
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Evan Rodrigues
A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jesper Boqvist
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt
Scratches: Jonah Gadjovich
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