Florida can reclaim a Wild Card spot with a win over Buffalo
Quite a bit has changed since the last time the Florida Panthers skated on their home ice.
It was nine days ago. Florida lost a third straight game to the New York Rangers in what was an electric atmosphere inside the FLA Live Arena.
Tuesday the Panthers will skate there again, now riding a three-game winning streak.
They’ll welcome another New York team to South Florida, but this time it’s the youthful Buffalo Sabres.
Buffalo has somehow crawled out of a massive hole that the team dug for itself during a 2-8-2 stretch earlier this month and re-entered the playoff conversation.
Thanks to a 4-0-1 run over the past ten days, the Sabres are just four points behind the Panthers with two games in hand.
Florida, meanwhile, is one point behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for the final Wild Card position and two points back of the New York Islanders for the first spot.
The Panthers and Penguins each have five games remaining while the Isles only have four.
Pittsburgh is on the road Tuesday night against a New Jersey Devils squad fighting to maintain home ice in the opening round of the playoffs and possibly catch Carolina for the Metropolitan Division crown.
The Islanders are off, meaning a Panthers win give both teams 87 points, but a Florida win in regulation would also give the Cats the tiebreak advantage over New York.
Long story short, if the Panthers win, they'll be back in a playoff spot regardless of what the Penguins do in Jersey.
LINEUP NOTES
Barring any last minute illness or injuries, there isn’t much mystery surrounding Florida’s lineup against Buffalo.
Sam Bennett will miss his seventh straight game with an undisclosed injury, though Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice did say on Monday there is a chance Bennett could return later this week.
Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky will not start in goal Tuesday. He’s still working his way back from a non-COVID illness that had kept him off the ice in recent days.
There is a chance that he serves as backup to Alex Lyon against the Sabres, but the expectation is that Bob will be available to start by Thursday’s game against Ottawa or Saturday’s game in D.C.
After the morning skate, Maurice said they'd wait to see how Bobrovsky felt as the day progressed before deciding if he'd dress for the game.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Aaron Ekblad on facing Buffalo’s top line of Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch and Justin Skinner: “They're very good, there's no doubt about it. They hold on to the puck, which makes them tough, right? They're not scared to take the hit and make the play. So it’s important to have good sticks, take away their time and space, similar things to every top line, really.”
Paul Maurice on the importance of this game: “I think this is a playoff game for both teams. I don't know that we feel necessarily any different than they do. They look at the schedule and say, ‘We're gonna run the table to get in.’ I think the islanders, Pittsburgh and ourselves all feel the same way. We can't play more than one game at a time, but you’re not winning one out of four or one out of five and getting in the playoffs.”
Ekblad on bouncing back after losing four straight: “We've obviously turned a corner, we've done well. Got to find a way to win these games. It's never easy to lose four in a row and pick yourself up off the mat, but that was the message when we had that opportunity to do that, and we've ran with it since.”
Maurice on the uniqueness of the Sabres: “They've got an unusual group, almost like we do, in terms of how they score goals. Both teams can score a lot, both teams try to play as hard as they can defensively, and that'll be the tale tonight.