A brief two-game road trip for the Florida Panthers comes to an end on Thursday in the Midwest.
Fresh off a frustrating 6-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets, Florida will play their only game of the season in Chicago, facing young star Connor Bedard and the Blackhawks.
After starting the season with a strong 11-3-1 mark through their first 15 games, the Panthers have stumbled a little, suffering regulation losses in three of their past four outings.
In those three defeats, Florida has allowed an uncharacteristic 16 goals.
To put that number into perspective, Florida gave up a total of 17 goals during their previous eight wins combined.
Now they’ll go from facing the league’s best team in Winnipeg to the NHL’s worst, Chicago.
The Blackhawks enter play Thursday holding a 6-12-1 record, good for 13 points, two points below the next worst team, Nashville.
The Hawks are 1-5-0 over their past six outings and have only won on home ice twice so far this season. Interestingly, Chicago has wins against some solid teams, picking up two points against Minnesota and at Colorado and Los Angeles.
Scoring-wise, Connor Bedard leads the way with 12 points in 19 games while Ryan Donato paces the team with eight goals in 17 games.
Florida, meanwhile, has a pair of forwards currently riding fairly ridiculous scoring streaks.
Sam Reinhart has an 11-game point streak going in which he’s scored nine goals, adding eight assists for good measure.
Panthers captain Sasha Barkov missed eight games earlier this season. He’s racked up 17 points in the nine games he’s played since returning, logging at least a point in each.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and for Thursday’s rematch with Jersey:
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
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: Mackie Samoskevich, Adam Boqvist
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