The Florida Panthers will close out the road portion of their schedule on Saturday night against a division rival also having a frustrating season.<\/p>\n
Florida has dropped each of the first four games of this five-game roadie and will try to salvage a win against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena.<\/p>\n
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To be fair, while yes, the players on the ice will absolutely be pushing to end their weeklong expedition with a hard-earned victory, when looking at the bigger picture, it would actually more benefit the Panthers if they lost the game. In regulation.<\/p>\n
The big reason why its better for Florida not to win at this point of the season, after being eliminated from playoff contention, is that if the Panthers finish in a position where they end up with a top-10 selection in this summer\u2019s NHL Draft, they get to retain the pick despite having traded it to Chicago in last year\u2019s Trade Deadline deal that brough Seth Jones to Sunrise.<\/p>\n
Whether Florida keeps the pick or trades it, the higher that selection ends up being, the better.<\/p>\n
When looking at the standings, the Panthers and Maple Leafs each have 78 points through 79 games, sitting as the sixth and seventh-worst teams in the league. Florida is seeded higher because they have more regulation wins.<\/p>\n
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In terms of lottery odds, this game holds pretty heavy implications.<\/p>\n
The Seatle Kraken are one point behind the Cats and Leafs with a game in hand. They host the Calgary Flames on Saturday after beating the Vegas Golden Knights in a shootout Friday night,<\/p>\n
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Thursday\u2019s visit to Ottawa:<\/p>\n
Carter Verhaeghe \u2013 Sam Bennett \u2013 Mackie Samoskevich<\/p>\n
Jesper Boqvist \u2013 Eetu Luostarinen \u2013 A.J. Greer<\/p>\n
Tomas Nosek \u2013 Cole Schwindt – Noah Gregor<\/p>\n
Nolan Foote \u2013 Luke Kunin \u2013 Vinnie Hinostroza<\/p>\n
Gus Forsling \u2013 Mike Benning<\/p>\n
Donovan Sebrango \u2013 Marik Alscher<\/p>\n
Tobias Bjornfot \u2013 Ludvig Jansson<\/p>\n
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Photo caption: Jan 6, 2026; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Troy Stecher (28) battles for the puck with Florida Panthers center Eetu Luostarinen (27) during the second period at Scotiabank Arena. (Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Panthers will close out the road portion of their schedule on Saturday night against a division…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[261,26,246,37,3711,1083,249,62,57,5141,5,253,1803,251,14650,4,8867,6700,72,63,83,4958,259,15076,256,66,31,5928,39,1120],"class_list":{"0":"post-550354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-a-j-greer","9":"tag-calgary-flames","10":"tag-carter-verhaeghe","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-cole-schwindt","13":"tag-donovan-sebrango","14":"tag-eetu-luostarinen","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-florida-panthers","17":"tag-floridapanthers","18":"tag-hockey","19":"tag-jesper-boqvist","20":"tag-luke-kunin","21":"tag-mackie-samoskevich","22":"tag-mike-benning","23":"tag-nhl","24":"tag-noah-gregor","25":"tag-nolan-foote","26":"tag-ottawa","27":"tag-panthers","28":"tag-sam-bennett","29":"tag-scotiabank-arena","30":"tag-seth-jones","31":"tag-tobias-bjornfot","32":"tag-tomas-nosek","33":"tag-toronto","34":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","35":"tag-troy-stecher","36":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","37":"tag-vinnie-hinostroza"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}