Panthers out for revenge with Blackhawks, star rookie Connor Bedard in town
Chicago defeated Florida 5-2 last weekend in the Windy City
The Florida Panthers will wrap up a quick two-game homestead on Sunday before heading to the west coast.
Florida welcomes the Chicago Blackhawks to Sunrise in a matchup of teams that are probably feeling pretty good about themselves.
Entering play Sunday, the Panthers have won three straight games and hold a solid 8-2-1 record over their past 11 outings.
Chicago meanwhile is fresh off an impressive 5-3 victory on Thursday in Tampa and have won three of five after opening the campaign 2-5-0.
Rookie sensation Connor Bedard put on quite a show against the Lightning, logging 2 goals and 3 points the first period before later adding an assist to cap off his first career multi-point game.
So far this season, Bedard leads all NHL rookies with 7 goals and 11 points in his first 12 games. Six of those goals have come over his last seven contests.
The Blackhawks have already defeated Florida once this season, winning 5-2 at United Center back on Nov. 4.
While the Panthers will be looking for a little revenge, they’ve been playing quite well of late and have been riding the scoring streaks of several of the team’s top forwards.
Entering Sunday’s game, Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk has logged 2 goals and 6 points during a five-game run while captain Sasha Barkov has 3 goals and 6 points during the same span.
Forward Sam Reinhart, however, has been at a completely different level this year.
He’s got 6 points over his past three games, but he also has logged eight multi-point outings during the Panthers first 13 contests.
Not bad for a guy in a contract year.
Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said earlier this week that center Sam Bennett was close to returning and that there was an outside chance he could play on Sunday.
Bennett took part in a full practice on Saturday at Amerant Bank Arena and if he doesn’t get into the lineup against Chicago, he should be back out there sometime during Florida’s upcoming trip through California.
Here are the Panthers projected lines for Sunday’s afternoon matchup with the Blackhawks, with one set of lines without Bennett playing and one set with him in the lineup.
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Anton Lundell – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Kevin Stenlund – Nick Cousins
Ryan Lomberg – Steven Lorentz – Will Lockwood
Gus Forsling – Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Josh Mahura – Uvis Balinskis
OR
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennet – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Nick Cousins
Ryan Lomberg – Kevin Stenlund – Steven Lorentz
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