GameDay No. 9: Lines, Betting Odds for Senators at Panthers

SUNRISE — The Florida Panthers will try and get back on track Saturday as the Ottawa Senators come to town at 4 p.m.

Florida practiced at the arena on Friday afternoon and kept the power play units intact as they were in Thursday’s 4-3 loss to the Flyers — Anton Lundell remains with the top group in place of Sam Bennett who is now on the second unit.

Although Florida took a loss in Philadelphia on Thursday, coach Paul Maurice liked what he saw for the most part from his team.

And why not? Florida took 104 shot attempts and 51 shots on goal in the game with Carter Hart being the difference in goal.

Maurice particularly liked Florida’s forecheck.

”The forecheck has been very strong for us this year but I felt, for the first time, we had all four lines on it,” Maurice said. “We’re trying to build a game we can play consistently and that one was as close to the game we want to play.”

Maurice said he liked the debut of Eric Staal who may or may not be back in the lineup Saturday.

Although Maurice did not confirm any lineup changes, we expect Spencer Knight to be in net today.

PANTHERS ON DECK

OTTAWA SENATORS AT FLORIDA PANTHERS

• When: Saturday, 4 p.m.
• Where: FLA Live Arena, Sunrise
• TV/Streaming: Bally Sports Florida, ESPN+
• Radio: WPOW 96.5-FM2; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932
• DraftKings odds — Florida favored: Money Line (-200); Puck line (-1.5, +120); Over/Under 7 (+110/-120)
• Last season: Florida won 3-1
  
• All-time regular season series: Ottawa leads 56-42-5, 3 ties

PROJECTED FLORIDA PANTHERS LINEUP

23 Carter Verhaeghe // 16 Sasha Barkov // 19 Matthew Tkachuk

38 Rudolfs Balcers // 9 Sam Bennett // 13 Sam Reinhart

27 Eetu Luostarinen // 15 Anton Lundell // 6 Colin White

94 Ryan Lomberg // 12 Eric Staal // 70 Patric Hornqvist

42 Gus Forsling // 62 Brandon Montour

28 Josh Mahura // 7 Radko Gudas

3 Matt Kiersted // 18 Marc Staal

30 Spencer Knight

72 Sergei Bobrovsky

Scratch: Nick Cousins, Lucas Carlsson

Injured: Anthony Duclair (LTIR-Achilles), Aaron Ekblad (LTIR-groin)

PROJECTED OTTAWA SENATORS LINEUP

7 Brady Tkachuk // 18 Tim Stutzle // 19 Drake Batherson

12 Alex DeBrincat // 61 Derick Brassard // 28 Claude Giroux

14 Tyler Motte // 57 Shane Pinto // 21 Mathieu Joseph

45 Parker Kelly // 47 Mark Kastelic // 16 Austin Watson

72 Thomas Chabot // 26 Erik Bannstrom

85 Jake Sanderson // 23 Travis Hamonic

5 Nick Holden // 22 Nikita Zaitsev

31 Anton Forsberg

39 Magnus Hellberg