Panthers kick off latest road trip in Philly against struggling Flyers

The Florida Panthers are back on the road for a pair of games against tough Metropolitan Division opponents.

Their trip begins on Monday night when the Panthers lock horns with the Philadelphia Flyers for the third and final time this season.

So far, Florida has picked up a pair of victories against their friends from Philly: a 4-3 shootout win back in early November and a 7-5 road dub about a month later.

It was before that that second loss to Florida that the Flyers – after a rough 1-5-1 start to the season – peaked at two games over .500.

Philadelphia has won just six games since, with their 6-10-2 record dragging them from the second Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference all the way down to second-to-last in the East, five points back of the last playoff spot.

Two players who will not be playing in either of Florida’s game this week are defenseman Aaron Ekblad and forward Jonah Gadjovich.

Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said that both would not be traveling with the team and that they would be reevaluated once Florida returned.

Here are Florida’s projected lines and pairings ahead of Monday’s matchup in Philly:

Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart

Eetu Luostarinen – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk

Carter Verhaeghe – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist

A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Mackie Samoskevich

Gus Forsling – Dmitry Kulikov

Niko Mikkola – Nate Schmidt

Tony Bjornfot – Uvis Balinskis

Scratches: Aaron Ekblad, Jonah Gadjovich, Adam Boqvist

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