Florida Panthers Start New Season with Pair of Losses

The Florida Panthers had a very eventful week as they officially kicked off a new season last Thursday night against the host Minnesota Wild.

And were shutout.

Although the Panthers were able to put some pucks in the back of the net on Saturday, they still left Winnipeg with losses in their first two games for the first time since 2018 and 0-2-0 for the first time since 2010.

They did have two players — Mackie Samoskevich and Uvis Balinskis — make their NHL debut.

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Coach Paul Maurice gave his team Sunday off in New York with the team wrapping up its first road trip of the season tonight against the New Jersey Devils.

The Panthers will be playing at Prudential Center tonight, the place where they somewhat surprisingly made Sasha Barkov the second-overall pick in the 2013 NHL Draft.

Barkov kicked off his 11th season with the Panthers — and his sixth as the team’s captain.

Taking him second turned out to be one heck of a good move.

— The Panthers made a pretty big trade on July 1 after a lot of the free agency dust had settled, sending Anthony Duclair to San Jose.

They got a player in Steven Lorentz who has fit right in.

— While the Panthers selected Anthony Stolarz as their backup to Sergei Bobrovsky, Spencer Knight got off to a good start with the AHL Charlotte Checkers.

— Speaking of cuts, it looked like Justin Sourdif was Florida’s final of the preseason.

Only once Aaron Ekblad was officially placed on LTIR Tuesday, Sourdif was ‘recalled’ from Charlotte and made his first NHL roster.

— Did you know Matthew Tkachuk, his brother Brady and their mom Chantal made a Hyundai commercial?

No? Well, that’s probably because you don’t live in Canada where it is being aired.

Regardless, watch it here. It’s pretty good.

— As always, you all had a number of great questions for the FHN Mailbag as we discuss a variety of topics from third jerseys (shocker!), contract extensions, the chances Patrick Kane comes to the Panthers, what happened to Grigori Denisenko and much, much more.

— Also last week, original Florida TV voice Jeff Rimer announced he would retire following this season calling games for the Columbus Blue Jackets.

— Plenty of new video on the FHN YouTube Channel including postgame from  Maurice, Carter Verhaeghe and Evan Rodrigues.

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FLORIDA PANTHERS ON DECK

PANTHERS @ NEW JERSEY DEVILS

• When: Monday, 7 p.m.
• Where: Prudential Center, Newark
• TV/Streaming: Bally Sports Florida; ESPN+
• Radio: WQAM 560-AM; WPOW 96.5-FM 2;WBZT 1230-AM (West Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); WCZR 101.7-FM (Treasure Coast); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932
• This Season: Panthers @ Devils, Monday; Devils @ Panthers, Jan. 13; Panthers @ Devils, March 5
• Last season: Florida won 2-1
• All-time regular season series: Devils lead 57-35-7, 7 ties
• Up Next for the Panthers: Home Opener; Thursday vs. Toronto, 7 p.m.