Quick road back-to-back ends with tough challenge in New Jersey

The Panthers find themselves in a bit of a funk as they enter their latest back-to-back set of road games.

After dropping a frustrating matchup Monday in Philly in which Florida led 2-0 early and held two third period leads, they must now try to bounce back against one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference, the New Jersey Devils.

Entering play Tuesday, the Devils and their 56 points are holding on to second place in the Metropolitan Division.

New Jersey bridged 2024 and 2025 with a four-game losing streak, but they’ve gone 2-0-1 since and overall have been playing some strong, fast hockey.

Florida, meanwhile, has dropped six of their past nine games.

They will once again be without Aaron Ekbald, who remained in South Florida with forward Jonah Gadjovich as both work their way back from respective injuries.

During Monday’s loss, Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice made a tweak to his forward group, swapping Carter Verhaeghe and Eetu Luostarinen on the second and third lines.

Aside from that, and Spencer Knight getting the start in goal, there aren’t any other changes expected on the Panthers side of things.

Here are Florida’s projected lines and pairings ahead of Tuesday’s tilt in New Jersey:

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 – Dmitry Kulikov

Niko Mikkola – Nate Schmidt

Tony Bjornfot – Uvis Balinskis

Scratches: Aaron Ekblad, Jonah Gadjovich, Adam Boqvist

LATEST STORIES FROM THE HOCKEY NEWS - FLORIDA

Florida squanders pair of third period leads, fall in Philly 4-3

Panthers kick off latest road trip in Philly against struggling Flyers

Three takeaways: Panthers deserved better against Boston, can find positives in OT loss

Reinhart scores twice, Bruins win on last second OT goal

Panthers set to host Bruins in latest rendition of heated rivalry