The Florida Panthers will play their first elimination game of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs on Wednesday night.
Fortunately for the Cats, they’re on the potential giving end of the elimination, as the host Tampa Bay Lightning need to pull out a win in order to keep their season alive.
It wasn’t until Monday’s Game 4 that a home team finally picked up a victory, and now Florida will look to start their postseason a perfect 3-0 on the road and knock out their cross-state rivals in the process.
So far during the four games in the series, Florida has scored 13 goals. Five have come off the sticks of defensemen.
Nate Schmidt is tied for the team lead with three goals while Seth Jones and Aaron Ekblad each added tallies of their own during Monday’s Game 4 win.
Between Schmidt in Games 1 and 2 and Jones in Game 4, those defensemen have also accounted for all of Florida’s game-winning goals in the series.
Unfortunately for the Panthers, they will have to play without one of those defenseman for the next couple games.
The NHL Department of Player Safety announced on Tuesday that Ekblad had been suspended two games for an elbow to the head of Tampa forward Brandon Hagel.
A likely reason for the suspension length being two games instead of one is that Hagel had already been ruled out of Game 5 by Tampa Head Coach Jon Cooper.
Considering how the intensity has been building with each game this series, Wednesday night should be quite a barn burner.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Game 5 in Tampa:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Evan Rodrigues – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
A.J. Greer – Nico Sturm – Jesper Boqvist
Gus Forsling – Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt
Scratches: Mackie Samoskevich, Jonah Gadjovich, Tomas Nosek, Jaycob Megna
LATEST STORIES FROM THE HOCKEY NEWS – FLORIDA
Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad suspended 2 games for elbowing Brandon Hagel
Panthers’ Brad Marchand Has Powerful Message After Game 4 Win
Three takeaways: Brad Marchand having unique kind of positive impact, Panthers earn unorthodox win
Comeback Cats strike Lightning, Panthers win Game 4 to take commanding series lead
3 Florida Panthers Who Must Step Up In Game 4
Read the full article here
