The Florida Panthers will look to build on their series-opening victory when they hit the ice on Thursday night in Tampa.
Florida skated to an impressive 6-2 win in Game 1 against the host Tampa Bay Lightning and can return to Sunrise with a commanding 2-0 series lead if they can pull off a repeat performance in Game 2 at Amalie Arena.
Despite finishing the regular season with the third-most shots per game in the NHL at 31.6, Florida mustered only 17 shots on a paltry 35 attempts during Tuesday’s win.
Fortunately, the Cats were incredibly accurate and timely with their shots, beating world class goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy six times, including a stretch during the second period in which Florida scored on three consecutive shots.
The Panthers received a massive boost during Game 1 with the return of Matthew Tkachuk.
After suffering an apparent groin injury at the 4 Nations Face-Off, Tkachuk had gone over two months since playing in a hockey game and was chomping at the bit to get back out there.
Skating on the Sam Bennett line and receiving his usual reps on the top power play, Tkachuk provided an instant spark both physically and offensively.
He finished the game with two goals and an assist while only playing 11:43 of ice time.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Game 2 in Tampa:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
Evan Rodrigues – Nico Sturm – Jesper Boqvist
Gus Forsling – Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt
Scratches: A.J. Greer, Jonah Gadjovich, Tomas Nosek, Jaycob Megna
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