With the playoffs on the horizon later this month, the Florida Panthers appear to finally be back on track.
Florida (45-29-4, 94 points) will host the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night in Sunrise.
The Panthers, who won their first Stanley Cup title last year, already have clinched a playoff berth for 2025. But they had lost five straight games (0-4-1) before ending that skid on Tuesday with a 3-1 victory over the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs.
That was career win No. 914 for Panthers coach Paul Maurice, who tied Barry Trotz for third place in NHL history. Scotty Bowman leads with 1,244, followed by Joel Quenneville with 969.
Maurice can move past Trotz with a win on Thursday.
Besides getting that victory, the Panthers are hoping to get healthy very soon.
Center Aleksander Barkov — one of the top two-way forwards in the NHL — returned to action on Tuesday. He had missed three straight games due to an upper-body injury.
Unfortunately for the Panthers, forward Sam Bennett won’t face Detroit, and he’s likely to miss the rest of the regular season due to an upper-body injury.
“I just don’t think he’s going back in,” Maurice said. “We’re going to give him the rest of the regular season off.”
Bennett has produced a career-high 50 points in 74 games this season. His 25 goals are the second-most of his 11-year career.
Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk, who ranks third on the team in goals (22) and points (57), has been out since getting hurt in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February. He will miss the rest of the regular season due to a groin injury.
The Panthers are hoping to get him back for the first round of the playoffs.
Fourth-line center Nico Sturm and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov both have upper-body injuries. Sturm could return on Thursday. Kulikov is expected back before the regular season ends.
“It’s nice when you can get that many bodies back,” said Panthers center Sam Reinhart, who leads the team in goals (37) and points (78).
Meanwhile, the Red Wings (36-34-7, 79 points) will need a minor miracle to make the playoffs. They will enter Thursday eight points behind the Montreal Canadiens, who hold the eighth and final playoff position in the Eastern Conference with 87 points.
Detroit, which has just five games left to try to make up that ground, has slumped over the past several weeks. The Red Wings are just 6-12-1 since Feb. 27.
In a 4-1 loss at Montreal on Tuesday, Detroit dominated but led just 1-0 heading into the first intermission.
“There’s certainly a concern about that,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said when asked about not getting more goals early. “It gives the other team a chance to regroup and get themselves in the game.”
Overall this season, Alex DeBrincat leads the Wings in goals (35), and he is tied for second with Dylan Larkin in points (65).
For DeBrincat, this is the fourth time in the past seven years that he has scored more than 30 goals in a season.
Larkin needs one more goal for this for his fourth straight season reaching 30.
Lucas Raymond leads Detroit in assists (49) and points (75). Those are career highs in both categories.
–Field Level Media
