Florida Panthers Ripe for a Rebound Against Blackhawks

The Florida Panthers are going from first to worst when they play the Chicago Blackhawks tonight at United Center.

After splitting a pair of games against the NHL’s top team in the Winnipeg, Florida turns to Chicago where the Blackhawks’ 13 points puts them at the bottom of the NHL standings.

Of course, the Blackhawks have been at or near the bottom of the standings the past two seasons and beat the Panthers in Chicago both years.

Coach Paul Maurice even referenced Florida’s past two losses in Chicago during media day before training camp started.

He was basically saying, if the Panthers lose in Chicago, it will be blamed on a Stanley Cup hangover.

That’s folly, since Florida lost in Chicago in each of the past two seasons and had no such excuse to fall back on.

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Regardless, the Panthers should be ready to play tonight and would like to fly home feeling good about life in general.

Florida has lost three of its past four — but have a 5-0 thrashing of the first-place Jets as part of its recent run.

Mackie Samoskevich returns in place of Jonah Gadjovich — but Adam Boqvist is is scratched for the 10th consecutive game.

Spencer Knight, who has not played since last Tuesday, is in net.

— Tonight’s game is only available through streaming via ESPN+ or Hulu.

Florida’s local broadcast returns on Saturday.

ON DECK: GAME 20

FLORIDA PANTHERS AT CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS

• When: Thursday, 8:30 p.m.
• Where: United Center, Chicago
• Local TV: NONE
• National Streaming ONLY: ESPN+/Hulu
• Radio: WPOW 96.5-FM2; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932, NHL App
• Betting Odds — Panthers Favored: Money Line (-260); Puck line (-1.5, +100); Over/Under 5.5 (-120/+100)
• Last season: Tied 1-1
• This season — At Florida: Feb. 1 (ABC). At Chicago: Thursday.
• All-time regular season series: Blackhawks lead 29-19-4, 3 ties
• Up Next for the Panthers: Saturday vs. Colorado Avalanche, 6 (Local TV)

PROJECTED FLORIDA PANTHERS (12-6-1) LINES

23 Carter Verhaeghe // 16 Sasha Barkov // 13 Sam Reinhart

17 Evan Rodrigues// 9 Sam Bennett // 19 Matthew Tkachuk

13 Eetu Luostarinen // 15 Anton Lundell // 70 Jesper Boqvist

10 AJ Greer // 92 Tomas Nosek // 25 Mackie Samoskevich

42 Gus Forsling // 5 Aaron Ekblad

77 Niko Mikkola // 7 Dmitry Kulikov

88 Nate Schmidt // 26 Uvis Balinskis

30 Spencer Knight

72 Sergei Bobrovsky

Scratched: Adam Boqvist, Jonah Gadjovich

PROJECTED CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS (6-12-1) LINES

98 Connor Bedard // 16 Jason Dickinson // 22 Joey Anderson

71 Taylor Hall // 8 Ryan Donato // 77 Pat Maroon

23 Philipp Kurashev // 17 Nick Foligno // 86 Teuvo Teravainen

59 Tyler Bertuzzi // 73 Lukas Reichel // 15 Craig Smith

25 Alec Martinez // 42 Nolan Allan

72 Alex Vlasic // 5 Connor Murphy

44 Wyatt Kaiser // 78  TJ Brodie

34 Petr Mrazek

40 Arvid Soderblom

Scratched: Louis Crevier, Ilya Mikheyev

Injured: Seth Jones (foot), Laurent Brossoit (knee)