Florida will be playing its fourth game in four cities in six nights, and doing it without two key forwards
The Florida Panthers will wrap up a four-game road trip Tuesday night in Columbus, which promises to prove quite challenging for several reasons.
Florida will be playing on the back end of a back-to-back in addition to playing their fourth road game in six days.
They are also playing without both Sasha Barkov, who suffered a lower-body injury in Ottawa and will miss the next 2-3 weeks, and Matthew Tkachuk, who is battling an illness and will be out until next week.
Tuesday night will also be the Columbus Blue Jackets’ home opener, and instead of celebrating the start of a new season, the team is dedicating the night to the memories of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau.
“Whatever they need, whatever the fans need, whatever the team needs to start that healing process, we'd be proud to be a part of it,” Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said.
Florida and Columbus will each wear special No. 13 jerseys during warmups and helmet decals honoring the brothers.
Here are Florida’s projected lines and pairings for Tuesday’s tilt in Columbus:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Evan Rodrigues
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Sam Reinhart
A.J. Greer – Jesper Boqvist – Mackie Samoskevich
Jonah Gadjovich – Patrick Giles – Uvis Balinskis
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Nate Schmidt – Adam Boqvist
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