The Florida Panthers and Colorado Avalanche, who both have Stanley Cup aspirations this season, have been going in different directions entering Saturday’s matchup in Sunrise, Fla.

Florida is 1-4-0 in its past five, while Colorado is 5-1-0 in its past six.

Panthers coach Paul Maurice, however, said he is not particularly concerned over a 3-1 loss at Chicago on Thursday.

“This is bigger,” Maurice said. “This is a five-game block. We played one (game) we liked, and that’s not good enough for us.”

That one game the Panthers liked was a 6-0 home win over NHL-leading Winnipeg last Saturday. But other than that, the Panthers have struggled, and Maurice bemoaned his team’s unforced turnovers on Thursday.

On offense, Maurice said his players were “late on a whole bunch of things out there” that could’ve been goals.

The reigning Stanley Cup champions have stars all over the ice, including forwards Sam Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, defenseman Gustav Forsling and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.

Reinhart has a 12-game points streak (10 goals, eight assists) and entered Friday tied for the NHL lead in goals with 15.

Barkov, the team captain and one of the NHL’s best defensive forwards, has missed eight games this season. But he is still tied with Reinhart for the team lead in assists with 15.

Tkachuk, who has missed five games, has five goals and eight assists in 15 contests. However, his value goes far beyond the numbers as the heart and soul of the team.

Forsling, an offensive defenseman, has 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in 20 games and leads the team in plus/minus at plus-13.

Bobrovsky, who is expected to start on Saturday, is 9-4-1 this season with a 2.98 goals-against average and a .893 save percentage. For his career, he is 12-4-2 with a 2.66 GAA and a .912 save percentage against Colorado.

The Avalanche, meanwhile, are coming off a 2-1 win over host Washington on Thursday.

Colorado coach Jared Bednar said his team’s depth has been showing up during this recent hot streak.

“All four lines are contributing,” he said.

Like the Panthers, the Avalanche have stars up front, on the blue line and between the pipes. Center Nathan MacKinnon and defenseman Cale Makar are considered by many to be among the top five players in the NHL. Winger Mikko Rantanen has turned in two straight 100-point seasons and goalie Alexandar Georgiev is coming off his first All-Star Game in 2024.

MacKinnon, a seven-time All-Star and the reigning league MVP, has averaged 125 1/2 points over the past two seasons. This season, he led the NHL in assists (27) and was tied for first in points (34) entering Friday.

Rantanen, a two-time All-Star, has nine goals over his past eight games. For the season, he leads Colorado with 13 goals and is tied for second with Makar in points (28).

Makar, a three-time All-Star and the Rookie of the Year in 2020, won the Norris Trophy in 2022 as the league’s best defensemen. Entering Friday, he leads all NHL blueliners in points.

Georgiev is 5-5-0 with a 3.31 GAA and a .874 save percentage. He missed two games due to an upper-body injury before returning on Thursday to beat Washington with 28 saves.

For his career against Florida, Georgiev is 2-3-0 with a 3.78 GAA and a .903 save percentage.

–Field Level Media

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies was placed on injured reserve Friday due to an upper-body injury, though coach Craig Berube said the former second-round pick is showing signs of improvement.

The decision to put the 22-year-old Knies on IR, retroactive to Wednesday, means the third-year player won’t suit up for Sunday’s home game against the Utah Hockey Club.

During Wednesday’s 3-0 victory over the visiting Vegas Golden Knights, Knies was hit under the chin by the shoulder of Zach Whitecloud and fell hard to the ice. Knies left the game immediately and hasn’t practiced since.

Officials deemed it a clean hit, though Whitecloud got into a subsequent scuffle with Knies’ teammate, Simon Benoit, who received a double minor. Whitecloud was cited for a two-minute roughing infraction.

In 20 games this season, Knies has 12 points (eight goals, four assists). Over 103 career games since 2022-23, the Phoenix native has totaled 48 points (23 goals, 25 assists) after being drafted by Toronto in 2021.

In a corresponding move, Toronto recalled forward Alex Nylander after signing the 26-year-old to a one year, $775,000 contract on Friday.

Nylander has 12 points (eight goals, four assists) this season in 14 games for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies.

The Calgary, Alberta native and brother of Toronto’s William Nylander has 49 points (25 goals, 24 assists) in 121 NHL games with the Buffalo Sabres (2016-19), Chicago Blackhawks (2019-20), Pittsburgh Penguins (2022-23) and Columbus Blue Jackets (2024). Buffalo made Nylander the No. 8 overall pick in the 2016 draft.

In other Leafs news, defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson missed practice Friday with an illness. The 33-year-old, who averages 21:09 of ice time, had an assist in Wednesday’s win and has eight points (one goal, seven assists) in 20 games.

To fill Ekman-Larsson’s spot, the Leafs recalled defenseman Philippe Myers from the Marlies on Friday. Myers played 12:11 in his one game with Toronto this season, a 4-3 overtime loss on Oct. 26 against the host Boston Bruins.

Also on Friday, Berube said that forward Max Domi may return for Sunday’s game despite being on the IR with a lower-body injury. Domi, 29, has six assists this season in 19 games.

–Field Level Media

The Minnesota Wild have stepped into uncharted territory as they prepare to finish a three-game road trip against the Calgary Flames on Saturday afternoon.

The Wild are off to the hottest start in franchise history with a 13-3-3 record through 19 games. A huge part of that success is a league-best 9-1-2 road mark, buoyed by an impressive 5-3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday.

“Great road game … again,” forward Marcus Johansson told The Athletic. “Everyone’s pulling their weight. I feel like we’re playing real solid all over the ice.”

The Wild, who trail only the Winnipeg Jets in points, are led by first-liners Matt Boldy and Kirill Kaprizov, both of whom are riding point-scoring streaks. The Edmonton victory also showed their resiliency, recovering from an early deficit and shaking off two disallowed goals.

“The big thing I like is the mental maturity that we’re now starting to show — that focus, how to play with the lead, what happens when bad things happen in the game, the discipline within your structure, the penalty discipline,” coach John Hynes said. “All those types of little things, I think, are becoming more and more automatic within the group.”

Kaprizov is not only riding a seven-game point streak in which he’s collected 13 points (six goals, seven assists) but he also is enjoying a franchise-record 11-game road point streak with 24 points (eight goals, 16 assists) in that span. Boldy is on a five-game run with three goals and two assists.

The Flames are also feeling good about themselves these days. Calgary, pegged to be a bottom-feeder prior to the season, is in second in the Pacific Division and riding a three-game winning streak extended by a 3-2 home victory over the New York Rangers on Thursday.

The Flames fired a season-high 49 shots on goal — 20 in the first period.

“Probably one of the best first periods all year, I think. We were all over them,” forward Jonathan Huberdeau said. “Obviously, it’s tough to play like that for 60 minutes, but I think we did a pretty good job and came up with another win.”

The Flames are succeeding despite being in the bottom third of the league offensively. In fact, Calgary has scored three or fewer goals in 17 consecutive games.

A huge key has been outstanding goaltending, especially from rookie Dustin Wolf, who has posted a 5-0-1 record in his last six starts and surrendered 10 goals in those outings.

Another aspect has been the team’s ability to control play with a relentless style.

“We’ve established an identity, which is big for our group,” defenseman MacKenzie Weegar said. “Coming into the Saddledome now, it’s hard to play against our group. We’ve got forwards tracking and checking hard, ‘D’ are in your face, goalies are kicking. We have an identity and I love to see it. That first period, we just kept comin’ and comin’ and I think it wore down on that team.”

–Field Level Media

A 4-0-1 run earlier this month lifted the spirits of the Philadelphia Flyers.

A pair of losses, however, has served as a reminder how far the Flyers must travel as they head into Saturday afternoon’s clash against the visiting Chicago Blackhawks.

Last Saturday, Philadelphia reached the NHL’s version of .500 thanks to a 5-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres that kicked off a five-game homestand on a positive note. The Flyers were snapped back to reality with a 3-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday and a 4-1 defeat against the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday.

The Flyers were tied 1-1 with the Hurricanes going into the third period before being undone by turnovers.

“The thing that bothers me the most, and I think it’s the biggest correction we have to make, is we have to manage the puck better in the neutral zone,” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said. “(Carolina) wins so many sword fights in the neutral zone, the 50-50s. They have such good sticks. You think you’re going to get a pass by them, or you think you’ll be able to skate by them one-on-one, and they get you.”

The good news for the Flyers is they know the issue and that it can be addressed.

“We were hanging right with them, thought we were doing a good job through the first 40 (minutes),” defenseman Nick Seeler said. “We got away from our game.”

The loss also snapped Travis Konecny’s seven-game point streak in which he had collected 13 points (six goals, seven assists).

The Blackhawks arrive on a positive note during what’s already a trying season. Chicago snapped a three-game losing skid with a 3-1 home victory over the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Thursday.

While The Blackhawks remain tied with the Nashville Predators for the fewest points in the league (15), they can see positives if they follow the plan.

“We had a commitment to winning hockey,” forward Nick Foligno said. “You know, it wasn’t perfect. It never really is, but it’s just you’re not making blatant errors and taking the life out of your own game. … That’s the big message here; it’s great, and we’re really excited about winning, and let’s do it again.”

Despite facing the defending champs, the Blackhawks set an early tone with a first-period goal and seized a 2-0 lead midway through the second.

That said, rising star Connor Bedard is mired in an 11-game goal drought. The 2023 first overall draft pick and last season’s Calder Memorial Trophy recipient as the NHL’s rookie of the year failed to register a shot on goal in 19:32 of ice time against the Panthers.

“I think he played a good game,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson told The Athletic of Bedard. “I thought he back-checked really hard to basically even up a two-on-one in the second period and stopped in front of the net. We didn’t get him here to be a defensive specialist, but the responsibility of playing against good lines comes first. … He did everything right on the defensive side of the game against one of the top centermen in the league, playing against (Aleksander) Barkov’s line. It was a great game for him.”

–Field Level Media