Panthers host Golden Knights in rematch of last season's Stanley Cup Final
Vegas defeated Florida 4-1 in the 2023 Stanley Cup Final and the teams have not met since
The Florida Panthers will play their final game before the NHL’s league-wide holiday break on Saturday afternoon at Amerant Bank Arena.
It will be a fairly significant game, due mostly to Florida’s opponent.
For the first time this season, and the first time since last summer's Stanley Cup Final, the Panthers will be facing the Vegas Golden Knights.
Fresh off the franchise’s first championship, Vegas started the 2023-24 season on fire, jumping out to an 11-0-1 record.
Currently, the Golden Knights are 21-8-5 and tied atop the NHL standings with the surprising Vancouver Canucks.
Entering Saturday’s game, however, Vegas has lost three of four, including both games on their current road trip, Tuesday in Carolina and Thursday in Tampa Bay.
The Golden Knights have been struggling to keep the puck out of their net recently, allowing an average of 4.5 goals over their past eight games.
Florida comes into the rematch with Vegas having lost back-to-back games and four of five.
In those four defeats, which include consecutive shutout losses, the Panthers were outscored 15-2.
It would seem that between Vegas' issues giving up goals and Florida's struggles scoring them, one way or anther something will need to give on Saturday.
When looking at Panthers players who have had success against Vegas over the years, Sasha Barkov has logged 5 goals and 12 points in nine games against the Golden Knights while Matthew Tkachuk has picked up 9 goals and 18 points over 14 contests against Vegas.
Florida may be getting a boost to its forward corps as both Anton Lundell and Jonah Gadjovich practiced fully with the team on Friday and could beck in the lineup on Saturday.
There has been in illness impacting several players in the Panthers locker room, and it hit Lundell and Gadjovich hard enough that both have been held out of Florida’s past few games because of it.
They have each been skating with Florida this week and Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice indicated that Lundell and Gadjovich could be back in the lineup against the Golden Knights.
“I’m gonna say they should be,” Maurice said.
Saturday’s battle with Vegas will begin a stretch of four straight games in the state of Florida for the Panthers, with three at home and one in Tampa Bay.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Saturday’s rematch with Vegas:
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Nick Cousins
Jonah Gadjovich – Kevin Stenlund – Ryan Lomberg
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Brandon Montour
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Dmitry Kulikov
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