The Florida Panthers are set to enjoy some extended time at home
On Thursday, the Panthers will kick off a five-game homestand against with a rematch of last June’s Stanley Cup Final between Florida and the Edmonton Oilers.
It matches the Panthers’ longest homestand of the season (they played five straight in Sunrise back in early November).
They’ll be facing their nemesis from Alberta, who are currently struggling through a bit of a rough patch.
Edmonton enters Thursday’s game riding a season-long four-game losing streak, including all three they’ve played since coming out of the 4 Nations break.
Granted, starting their season back up with three road games in four nights is far from ideal, but a team as good as the Oilers shouldn’t be losing them by a combined score of 17-7.
When looking at Edmonton, the first player who will always be mentioned is Connor McDavid.
Over his past five games, McDavid has not impacted the game in positive ways the way he generally has throughout his career.
During that span, McDavid has zero goals, three assists 11 shots and an eye-popping -12 on-ice rating.
It would not be surprising in the least to see McDavid break out of his mini-slump against the team that denied him a chance to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup less than a year ago.
Speaking of the Panthers, they are expected to have forward Eetu Luostarinen back in the lineup on Thursday after Justin Sourdif was called up from AHL Charlotte to take his spot on Tuesday in Nashville.
Sourdif filled in nicely, scoring his first NHL goal, which also proved to be the game-winning, in Florida’s 4-1 win over the Predators.
The Panthers loaned Sourdif back to Charlotte on Wednesday, indicating Luostarinen will be back in the lineup against Edmonton.
He stayed behind in South Florida as his wife was expecting to give birth to the couple’s first child.
Thursday’s game will be the second and final time the Panthers and Oilers face off during the regular season.
Florida won the first meeting, a 6-5 back-and-forth affair up in Edmonton back on Dec. 16.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and for Thursday’s battle with Edmonton:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich – Sam Bennett – Evan Rodrigues
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jonah Gadjovich
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt
Scratches: Matthew Tkachuk
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