It’s been a rough week on the road for the Florida Panthers, who have yet to win a game after starting the season with three straight victories in their home barn.
They’ll be back on the ice going for the first road victory Saturday afternoon when they travel to Buffalo for a matinee with the Sabers.
As many expected, and as Buffalo fans feared, it’s been another rough start to a season for the Sabres.
They opened the year with three straight losses by a combined score of 10-2 before picking up their first win on Wednesday night, an 8-4 thumping of the Ottawa Senators.
With Florida anxious to get back on the right side of a game result, they will likely turn back to Sergei Bobrovsky in goal after giving him two of the past three starts off.
Bobrovsky has won each of his past three appearances against the Sabres, and in 26 career games, Bob holds s 16-7-2 record against Buffalo along with a tidy .916 save percentage.
Another thing to keep an eye on will be how Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice manages his forward lines.
Over the past couple games, we’ve seen several changes after there were none during Florida’s first four outings.
Don’t be surprised to see Maurice go back to what worked well for the Cats early in the season, though with Maruice, there’s just as good of a chance that we’ll see brand new forward lines, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
With the 1 p.m. puck drop, there won’t be any morning skates for either squad, so pregame warmups will be the first place we’ll see what Maurice has cooked up.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Saturday’s matinee in Buffalo:
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Brad Marchand
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich – Evan Rodrigues – Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer – Luke Kunin – Jonah Gadjovich
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Seth Jones
Uvis Balinskis – Jeff Petry
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Photo caption: Oct 16, 2025; Newark, New Jersey, USA; Florida Panthers center Evan Rodrigues (17) celebrates his goal against the New Jersey Devils during the first period at Prudential Center. (Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images)