FORT LAUDERDALE \u2013 Back on the road.<\/p>\n
After returning to Sunrise for their home opener against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday, the Florida Panthers will be heading north for a back-to-back.<\/p>\n
Following their first regulation loss of the season, falling 4-1 to the Wild, the Panthers sit at 2-1-2 through five games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know with our game, it’s going to come,\u201d Gustav Forsling said following the team\u2019s practice at Baptist Health IcePlex on Sunday. \u201cIt’s just a matter of time here. We\u2019ve just got to stick with our game.\u201d<\/p>\n
A chance to get to their game, the Panthers will start their road trip against the Buffalo Sabres on Monday at KeyBank Center at 1 p.m. ET, before closing out the back-to-back against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Carrying over the road success they have shown over the past few seasons, the Panthers earned points in all four road games to start the season, going 2-0-2.<\/p>\n
LUOSTARINEN GOOD TO GO<\/p>\n
The Panthers can exhale on Sunday following Eetu Luostarinen\u2019s departure from Saturday\u2019s game after being hit with a shot.<\/p>\n
Leaving in the third period, the Finnish forward did not return to the game.<\/p>\n
A near scare, Luostarinen was on the ice skating in Sunday\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gets hit with a lot of pucks because he’s not afraid to go to the net,\u201d head coach Paul Maurice said of Luostarinen. \u201cHe’s blocked a lot of shots, broke his leg once doing it, so we kind of hold our breath. Then he’s walking around the next day and everything’s good, so that’s just his life. He’s going to be a penalty-killing shot blocker, and he’s a net front guy. He’s going to take some pucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Averaging 15:29 time on ice this season so far, Luostarinen has registered two goals, eight shots, and nine hits.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old also leads all Panthers forwards with five blocked shots.<\/p>\n
FIVE-ON-FIVE PLAY<\/p>\n
Not many teams in the league have been as good as the Panthers at even strength to start the 2026-27 campaign.<\/p>\n
Per NaturalStatTrick.com, while five-on-five, the Panthers own a 56.94% offensive advantage (sixth in the NHL) and 57.14% high-danger chance advantage (seventh in the NHL).<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the games have been tight games, and I feel like our five-on-five game has been really<\/p>\n
solid,\u201d said Forsling. \u201dWe don’t give up much.\u201d<\/p>\n
While five-on-five, the Panthers also own a 86-66 shot advantage.<\/p>\n
PRACTICE LINES<\/p>\n
Forwards<\/p>\n
Brady Tkachuk \u2013 Sam Bennett \u2013 Matthew Tkachuk<\/p>\n
Carter Verhaeghe \u2013 Sam Reinhart \u2013 Sam Lafferty<\/p>\n
Eetu Luostarinen \u2013 Anton Lundell \u2013 Sandis Vilmanis<\/p>\n
Boko Imama \u2013 Lars Eller \u2013 Garnet Hathaway<\/p>\n
Defense<\/p>\n
Gustav Forsling \u2013 Aaron Ekblad<\/p>\n
Niko Mikkola \u2013 Seth Jones<\/p>\n
Dmitry Kulikov \u2013 Radko Gudas<\/p>\n
Uvis Balinskis<\/p>\n
Goaltenders<\/p>\n
Jacob Markstrom<\/p>\n
Akira Schmid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE \u2013 Back on the road. After returning to Sunrise for their home opener against the Minnesota…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[62,57,5141,5,4,63],"class_list":["post-684507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida-panthers","tag-florida","tag-florida-panthers","tag-floridapanthers","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-panthers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117424470417551027","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684507","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=684507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}