Dec 10, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky (72) defends the goal against the Seattle Kraken during the third period at Climate Pledge Arena. (Steven Bisig-Imagn Images)Not to steal a line from the cast of Frozen, but it feels like forever since the Florida Panthers have played an NHL game.
That’s finally going to change on Saturday in Sunrise when Florida hosts the Seattle Kraken at Amerant Bank Arena.
As the league opens up its post 4 Nations Face-Off schedule, it’s poop or get off the pot time for teams on the cusp of the playoff chase.
Looking at the standings, the Kraken enter play Saturday a healthy 11 points behind Vancouver for the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference.
With only 25 games left on their schedule, the Kraken may already be a bit too far out, but a strong push over the next couple weeks will go a long way toward making the final quarter of their season a fun one.
The game will also be a homecoming of sorts for a pair of former Panthers blueliners.
Defensemen Brandon Montour and Josh Mahura, both of whom were with the Cats when they won the Stanley Cup last summer, will make their first return to Sunrise since hoisting the historic trophy.
For Florida, they come out of the 4 Nations break almost entirely healthy.
The almost is a big one, though.
Forward Matthew Tkachuk suffered an injury while playing for Team USA that caused him to miss parts of the two games against Canada and all of the U.S. loss to Sweden.
Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said on Friday that he wouldn’t know the full extent of Tkachuk’s injury until after he got back to South Florida and could be evaluated by the team’s medical staff.
For now, Tkachuk will be considered day-to-day, but that designation should be considered fluid until there is a second update from Maurice.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Saturday’s scrum with Seattle:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich – Sam Bennett – Evan Rodrigues
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jonah Gadjovich
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt
Scratches: Matthew Tkachuk
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