Mar 3, 2025; Sunrise, Florida, USA; Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad (5) moves the puck against the Tampa Bay Lightning during the second period at Amerant Bank Arena. (Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)The Florida Panthers will host their first playoff game on Saturday since Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final.
Florida opened their first-round matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning with a pair of impressive road victories earlier this week.
Now the Cats have returned to South Florida and will look to take a commanding 3-0 lead in the series when they host the Lightning in Game 3 at Amerant Bank Arena.
Exactly how the Panthers roster will look is still a bit of a mystery.
Florida Captain Sasha Barkov was injured during the third period of Thursday’s 2-0 win after an illegal check by Tampa forward Brandon Hagel.
Officials gave Hagel a five-minute major for interference during the game, and he has since been handed a one-game suspension from the NHL Department of Player Safety.
As for Barkov, Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said Friday that he had not been cleared to play but he had not been ruled out either, so it sounds like a game-time decision.
One change that we know is coming to the Panthers roster is the addition of defenseman Aaron Ekblad to the back line.
Ekblad has completed a 20-game suspension that he was handed back in early March or violating the terms of the NHL/NHLPA Performance Enhancing Substances Program.
He’s been back skating and practicing with the Panthers for the past couple weeks and it will be interesting to see how quickly he can re-adapt to the intensity and speed of not just the NHL, but the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“It’s a very unusual situation, normally, a player that’s out 20 games has a significant injury and that really effects their rehab,” said Maurice. “We’ll put him right back with his partner and we’ll put him right back in all the situations. It’s about getting him up to speed as fast as we can. There’s going to be about a 10-minute adjustment to playoff hockey, because it’s just different. He’ll make that adjustment and away he goes.”
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Game 3 against Tampa:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
Evan Rodrigues – Nico Sturm – Jesper Boqvist
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Seth Jones
Dmitry Kulikov – Nate Schmidt
Scratches: A.J. Greer, Jonah Gadjovich, Tomas Nosek, Jaycob Megna, Uvis Balinskis
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