SUNRISE, Fla. – There’s no place like home.
After getting through their longest road trip of the season, the Florida Panthers will finally return home to host the St. Louis Blues at Amerant Bank Arena on Thursday.
“It’s going to be nice to be back home after a long road trip,” Panthers defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson said. “We’ve just got to make sure that we’re ready to start.”
So far this season, the Panthers have done a great job at coming off the road.
In games following trips of at least three games, they’ve posted a 3-1-0 record.
“It’s historically true in the NHL that when come off the West Coast on a long trip that your first game back is sluggish, except we haven’t faced that,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. “You go back to last year and our first game back off a trip was Carolina at home, and we played a heck of a game. We’re looking forward to that.”
Sitting in third place in the Atlantic Division with a record of 18-11-2, the Panthers finished their five-game road trip with a mark of 2-3-0 following a 3-1 loss at Calgary on Monday.
Tied 1-1 after 40 minutes, the Panthers fell behind in the third period when Flames captain Mikael Backlund capitalized on a miscue and buried a shorthanded breakaway to make it 2-1. With 1:33 left in regulation, Blake Coleman added an empty-net goal to make it 3-1.
In defeat, Florida led 2.34-1.42 in expected goals.
Overall, the five-game trip was a series of highs and lows for the Panthers. They battled through some illness and on paper it would seem they had a chance to win every game.
But in the end, they led 10-3 in two wins and were outscored 11-1 in three losses.
“A long road trip,” Ekman-Larsson said. “It’s kind of hard to remember. I thought we had a chance to win that last one and kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit. It’s always some good stuff and then some bad stuff you have to clean up. I think if we get that last one it’s probably a pretty decent road trip, but we didn’t.”
Netting the lone goal for the Panthers in the loss to the Flames, Sam Reinhart leads the team in goals (18), assists (21) and points (39). Aleksander Barkov is also producing at better than a point-per-game pace, logging 30 points (11 goals, 19 assists) in 28 games.
Carter Verhaeghe ranks third in points (26), including scoring 15 goals.
In terms of lineup notes, Maurice announced that Anton Lundell and Jonah Gadjovich will sit out their fourth straight game due to an illness. The good news is that Lundell did skate this morning and the team is hopeful that he can play against Vegas on Saturday.
After backing up Anthony Stolarz in Calgary, Sergei Bobrovsky will start tonight.
Owning a 14-8-1 record, Bobrovsky was outstanding in his last outing, stopping 38 of 39 shots in a 5-1 win at Edmonton on Dec. 16. Overall, the two-time Vezina Trophy winner has gone 5-2-0 on top of a stellar .922 save percentage in his last seven appearances.
“The start is going to be crucial, but for us it’s the whole 60 minutes,” Barkov said of tonight’s tilt. “We want to play really well for 60 minutes. The last few games we’ve been good some periods, but not the whole game. We’ve got to focus on that.”
For the Blues, it’s been a crazy couple of weeks.
On Dec. 14, the team fired head coach Craig Berube, who was in his sixth season behind the bench and coached the Blues to the Stanley Cup in 2019.
Interim head coach Drew Bannister is currently calling the shots for St. Louis.
After winning their first two games under Bannister, the Blues suffered a 6-1 loss at Tampa Bay in their most-recent game on Tuesday. Falling behind early, St. Louis gave up three goals in the first period to end up in a deep hole the team couldn’t dig out of.
Struggling on both sides of the puck, the Blues rank 26th in the NHL on offense (2.84 goals scored per game) and 23rd on defense (3.35 goals allowed per game). Over their last seven games, they’ve surrendered at least five goals on four different occasions.
Robert Thomas leads St. Louis in goals (12), assists (20) and points (32). After him, Pavel Buchnevich (23) and Jordan Kyrou (21) are the only other plays with at least 20 points. On the blue line, defensemen Torey Krug and Justin Faulk have each registered 15 points.
Jordan Binnington has handled the bulk of the work between the pipes for the Blues, posting a 10-10-1 record with a .904 save percentage. Backing him up, Joel Hofer has gone 5-5-0 with a .893 save percentage. Binnington has started the last five games.
This is the first of two matchups between the Panthers and Blues this season.
“The challenge will be this team coming in got beat pretty good the other night even though they didn’t play that bad,” Maurice said. “A new coach, so they’re a little growly in practice they other day. They’ll be focused. They’re big and they’re fast. They’ll make plays off the rush. The key then is our gap.”
PREGAME QUOTES
“It was a long trip, a tough trip for us, far away from home. Overall, it’s always nice to be on the road with this group of guys. Happy to be home, for sure.” – Aleksander Barkov
“I think we’ve got to worry about ourselves and make sure that we come prepared and come ready here tonight. I think it’s going to be a tough game. They have a good lineup and a good team. They’ve been struggling a little bit, coaching changes and stuff like that. But, like I said, we’ve got to worry about ourselves.” – Oliver Ekman-Larsson
FIVE CATS STATS
- Matthew Tkachuk has tallied 20 points (4G, 16A) in 16 career games vs. St. Louis.
- The Panthers have allowed just one power-play goal over their last six games.
- Florida ranks seventh in the NHL in points percentage at home this season (.692).
- The Panthers are 4-0-0 when Eetu Luostarinen scores a goal this season.
- Sam Reinhart leads the Panthers with 13 multi-point performances.
PROJECTED LINEUP (SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
Forwards
Evan Rodrigues – Aleksander Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Kevin Stenlund – Nick Cousins
Ryan Lomberg – Steven Lorentz – Will Lockwood
Defensemen
Gustav Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Brandon Montour
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Dmitry Kulikov
Goaltenders
Sergei Bobrovsky
Anthony Stolarz
RECENT TRANSACTIONS
- Dec. 16: F Will Lockwood recalled from Charlotte (AHL)
- Dec. 15: Uvis Balinskis loaned to Charlotte (AHL)
- Dec. 7: F Josh Davies signed to a three-year, entry-level contract
HOW TO WATCH
When: Thursday, Dec. 21 at 7 p.m. ET
Where: Amerant Bank Arena – Sunrise, FL
TV & Streaming: Bally Sports Florida, Bally Sports+
Radio: 560 WQAM (Dade/Broward); 1230 WBZT (Palm Beach); 100.3 WCTH (Florida Keys); 101.7 WCZR (Treasure Coast); SiriusXM App & Streaming 932; Panthers App
Tickets: Here
