Panthers reunite Jonathan Huberdeau and Aleksander Barkov on top line to start postseason
Joel Quenneville didn’t rule out lineup changes following the Florida Panthers’ ugly exhibition loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday. After the Panthers failed to generate any sort of offense in their exhibition game, the coach reunited his once-potent top line to start the expanded postseason Saturday in Toronto.
Jonathan Huberdeau, who finished the abbreviated regular season on Florida’s second line, returned to the first line to open Game 1 of the qualifying round against the New York Islanders. The All-Star left wing replaced Frank Vatrano, and was reunited with Aleksander Barkov and Evgenii Dadonov as Florida looked for a quick fix to its offensive issues for a best-of-five series at Scotiabank Arena.
“It was one of those games that you’re thinking and looking at all aspects and all areas,” Queneville said Thursday when asked about potentially changing the lineup based on the poor scrimmage performance.
On Friday, he said the five-game series also creates an additional sense of urgency to make quick adjustments.
“You don’t have a lot of time in a short series to wait, wait, wait,” Quenneville said, “and I think we want to go with what we think is going to give us the best chance at that moment.”
Huberdeau finished the regular season as the Panthers’ leading scorer with 78 points — 23 goals and 55 assists — and Barkov finished second with 62 points — 20 goals and 42 assists. The two forwards spent most of the year playing together and became one of the NHL’s best offensive tandems, but 13 losses in 18 games coming out of the All-Star break prompted Quenneville to reshuffle his lines, and split up Barkov and Huberdeau, hoping to bring greater offensive balance to his lineup. Florida finished the regular season on a two-game winning streak with the altered lines before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the season in March and Quenneville stuck with his new lines throughout postseason training camp last month in Coral Springs.
By the end of the exhibition, he was back to playing his two most productive scorers together.
“It was a wake-up call for all of us,” Barkov said Thursday, “and now we know how it’s going to be in the playoffs.”
More Florida Panthers lineup changes
With Huberdeau back on the top line, the Panthers are shaking up all their lines.
Lucas Wallmark, who had been the third-line center, is out of the lineup for undisclosed reasons with left wing Dryden Hunt replacing him on the active roster, so Florida is overhauling all four lines.
On the second line, winger Mike Hoffman is playing on the left side, forward Erik Haula is playing center and Noel Acciari, usually the fourth-line center, is playing right wing. On the third line, Vatrano is playing left wing, forward Dominic Toninato is playing center and winger Brett Connolly is playing on the right side. The third line has winger Colton Sceviour on the left side, forward Brian Boyle at center and converted defenseman Mark Pysyk at right wing.
The Panthers’s defensive pairings are all intact. Defensemen Aaron Ekblad and MacKenzie Weegar — Florida’s top defensive pairing — returned to the lineup, as expected, after missing the exhibition game.
This story was originally published August 1, 2020 at 4:06 PM.
