Yahoo Sports Panthers in Tampa to kick off holiday home and home with rival Lightning
The Florida Panthers are set to play their final road game of 2024 on Sunday.
Fortunately for the Panthers, they didn’t have to travel very far.
Florida took a quick flight up to Tampa for their first matchup of the season with the cross-state rival Tampa Bay Lightning.
It’s the first leg of a home and home between the Cats and Bolts that will conclude a night later, Monday in Sunrise.
The last time these teams faced each other, Florida eliminated the Lightning in Game 5 of the opening round of last season’s playoffs.
Similarly to last year, Tampa currently finds themselves holding a Wild Card spot, two points back of Boston for third in the Atlantic Division.
The Lightning have been playing some solid hockey for several weeks now, with four straight wins in the short term and an 11-4-1 mark since mid-November in the long term.
Not that the Panthers haven’t also been pretty good.
Florida has won three straight and are 9-2-1 since Thanksgiving week, leading the NHL with 32.7 shots per game during that span.
They have also had some pretty decent success against Tampa in recent years, holding an 11-5-3 record since the start of the 2020-21 season, including an impressive 6-2-2 mark at Amalie Arena.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Sunday’s battle with the Bolts:
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Mackie Samoskevich
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt
Scratches: Jonah Gadjovich, Adam Boqvist
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