Back from road, Panthers begin homestand with rematch against Los Angeles

For the first time in nearly two weeks, the Florida Panthers will play a game inside their home barn in Sunrise.

Back from their latest road trip, Florida will host one of the teams they lost two while across the country last week, the Los Angeles Kings.

Currently, the Panthers are trying to find some stability and consistency in their game.

Over the past month, Florida has navigated quite a few peaks and valleys.

Since winning a fourth straight game back on Dec. 22, the Panthers have gone just 7-8-1 during the 16 games since.

Fortunately for the Cats, the lull hasn’t hurt them much in the standings.

Entering play Wednesday, Florida remains one point behind the Toronto Maple Leafs for first place in the Atlantic Division, but the gap between the teams below is shrinking.

Currently, the third-place Ottawa Senators are only five points behind Florida, with Boston tied in points with the Sens and Tampa a point behind Boston.

As for the Kings, they followed up their 2-1 comeback win over Florida with consecutive road losses to Columbus and Detroit and have now won only two of their past eight games.

Los Angeles still has a three-point lead over Calgary for third-place in the Pacific, but the gap is widening between the Kings and the two teams at the top of the division, Edmonton and Vegas.

Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Wednesday’s duel with the Kings:

Carter Verhaeghe– Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart

Matthew Tkachuk – Sam Bennett – Mackie Samoskevich

Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Evan Rodrigues

A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jesper Boqvist

Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov

Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt

Scratches: Jonah Gadjovich, Adam Boqvist

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