Panthers without Brad Marchand against Ducks. How that impacts forward lines
The Florida Panthers will be without Brad Marchand for their home game against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday (7 p.m., Scripps Sports).
The veteran forward is out for personal reasons, as he attends a family member’s funeral.
Marchand, who has been the right wing on Florida’s second line with Anton Lundell at center and Eetu Luostarinen at left wing, leads the Panthers in goals (five), assists (six) and points (11) through the first 10 games of the season. He has been a central figure on a team that is already dealing with significant losses to its forward group without Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Tomas Nosek.
He is one of two forwards who will be sidelined Tuesday. Panthers coach Paul Maurice said fourth-line winger Jonah Gadjovich will be out for at least a week with an upper-body injury he sustained in Florida’s 3-0 win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday.
Without Marchand and Gadjovich, forwards Noah Gregor and Luke Kunin will move into the lineup, playing on the fourth line with center Cole Schwindt. Mackie Samoskevich will take Marchand’s spot as the right wing on Florida’s second line, and A.J. Greer moves up to the third line as the left wing on a grouping with center Sam Bennett and Jesper Boqvist.
It’s the latest bit of mixing and matching with his forwards lines that Maurice has had to do while figuring out how to piece his lineup together.
“It’s a brand new team and significant pieces are out,” Maurice said, referencing the absences of Barkov and Tkachuk. “So you have to find then groups that can fit together with their chemistry and then chart a direction with the style of games. There has been a shift in what we’re trying to do. ... It’s not the core foundation of what we believe or how we want to play, but you are going to look different. We feel now it took a little while to find it. Sometimes your adversity is the best opportunity you have to find new things. So we’ve got some new line combinations, and we started to explore different parts of our game that we don’t talk about much. We have to get all our details right. So that’s kind of where we’re at right now.”
Where they’re at is 5-5-0 through 10 games, treading water through 10 games as they work through a slew of injuries in their quest to win a third consecutive Stanley Cup. In addition to being without multiple forwards, veteran defenseman Dmitry Kulikov until March after he underwent wrist surgery earlier this month.
“We’ve got things to improve and some things to build on,” defenseman Niko Mikkola said. “Every team is giving their best against us. There’s no free points in this league. We need to battle for every point, and that’s the main thing. Keep the focus on the hockey.”
They showed on Saturday what they can look like at their best even without so many big players. Florida dominated Vegas in shot attempts (70-49), scoring chances (45-18) and high-danger chances (19-7) on their way to their first shutout victory of the season. Sam Reinhart, Schwindt and Greer scored goals while Bobrovsky logged a 17-save shutout — the 50th of his NHL career.
“It was definitely our identity and our pace of play that came out against one of the top teams in the league in our building,” Greer said. “I thought we dictated a lot of the pace and came out playing really well to begin with. We simplified our game. We didn’t really think too much and just came back to the base of what we do best and how we have success. It was a good night for us.”
Now, a couple new faces will be in the lineup hoping to help Florida build on that win. Kunin returns after being a healthy scratch for the game against the Golden Knights. Gregor, meanwhile, makes his season debut after signing a two-way deal with the club ahead of the season. He has been dealing with a visa issue that has kept him from playing.
Additionally, reserve defenseman Tobias Bjornfot was sent to the Charlotte Checkers, Florida’s American Hockey League affiliate, on Monday. Donovan Segrango, who like Gregor has been dealing with visa issues, will join the team on Tuesday, Maurice said.
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