‘I’m playing with my food here:’ Panthers tinkering with forward lines to prepare for playoffs
Paul Maurice knows now is the time to tinker, to experiment, to explore his options.
“I’m playing with my food here a little bit,” the Florida Panthers’ veteran coach said.
With 30 games left in the regular season and the Panthers looking well on their way to another playoff berth — Florida leads the Atlantic Division with a 30-19-3 record (63 points), one point ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs (30-19-2, 62 points) after a 3-0 win against the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday — Maurice wants to have as much of an understanding of his team as possible. He wants to be prepared for as many situations as possible.
And at times, that means switching things up now to see if they work so that he’s not guessing about what might happen when the stakes are raised.
“You’re looking for potential pieces of chemistry that might happen,” Maurice said.
The only way to do that is to see it in live action. So Maurice has toyed around with his forward lines throughout the season.
He knows there are some combinations that work. Last season, he prioritized keeping two-thirds of each of his top three lines together — Aleksander Barkov with Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett with Matthew Tkachuk, Anton Lundell with Eetu Luostarinen. From there, Maurice filled out each line with wingers who could be moved up or down the lineup depending on matchups or if a certain line needed a spark.
So far this regular season, Maurice has gone with a slew of different combinations that he usually shies away from just to see what he has at his disposal.
For a few games when the team was going through an offensive slump, Maurice supercharged his top line by putting Tkachuk with Barkov and Reinhart.
At one stretch, Luostarinen was on the second line with Bennett and Tkachuk.
Evan Rodrigues, Carter Verhaeghe and Jesper Boqvist — and, to an extent, A.J. Greer — have rotated throughout the lineup to fill voids. Rookie Mackie Samoskevich has evolved to the point where Maurice is trusting him to play middle-six minutes.
“We know what we ended with last year,” Maurice said. “We know what the structure of that looks like. What other places can we go? Can we develop some chemistry with places we didn’t know we had?”
Those are questions Maurice will continue to ask over the next two-and-a-half months so that, hopefully, when the playoffs begin, he’ll have the answers.
This and that
▪ Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 29 shots against for his second shutout of the season and 46th of his career. It marked his 13th shutout of his Panthers career, tying John Vanbiesbrouck for third most in club history. He trails only Roberto Luongo (38) and Tomas Vokoun (23).
Bobrovsky has won each of his last three appearances since Jan. 21, surrendering four total goals over those three games.
▪ Tkachuk factored on all three of Florida’s goals on Wednesday, logging two assists and an empty-net goal. It was his 60th career three-point game, tying his dad Keith Tkachuk and former teammate Johnny Gaudreau for the fifth-most among American players over the past 30 years per NHL stats. Only Patrick Kane (108), John Leclair (68), Joe Pavelski (63) and Mike Modano (62) have more in that span.
▪ The Panthers on Thursday placed defenseman Adam Boqvist on waivers. Boqvist, who signed a one-year deal with the team this offseason, played in just 18 games with Florida and has been a healthy scratch in each of the Panthers’ past 11 games and 21 of the past 26 overall.
This story was originally published January 30, 2025 at 11:10 AM.
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