{"id":511934,"date":"2026-03-01T14:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T14:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/511934\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T14:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T14:27:08","slug":"with-nhl-trade-deadline-ahead-florida-panthers-open-make-or-break-road-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/511934\/","title":{"rendered":"With NHL Trade Deadline Ahead, Florida Panthers Open Make-or-Break Road Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SUNRISE \u2014 The end of the Florida Panthers season as we know it may just start tonight on Long Island.<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers play yet another \u2018resurgent\u2019 team in the New York Islanders tonight at 6:30, a team that appears headed to the playoffs after missing the dance last year.<\/p>\n<p>Florida remains eight points out of the playoffs after a 1-1 start coming out of the Olympic break.<\/p>\n<p>With 23 games left and the NHL Trade Deadline coming Friday at 3, tonight\u2019s game against the Islanders marks the start of the most important road trip, for this team, of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Florida plays three games on this trip before the trade deadline with four games being played overall.<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers play the Islanders at Belmont Park tonight before visiting New Jersey (Tuesday), Columbus (Thursday) and Detroit (Friday).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI always say, if you\u2019re on a three-game or longer road trip, the first game is so important,\u2019\u2019 Matthew Tkachuk said <a href=\"https:\/\/floridahockeynow.com\/buffalo-sabres-3-florida-panthers-2-feb-27-2026-lyon-wins-it-controversial-goalie-interference-tarasov\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">after Friday\u2019s 3-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you don\u2019t get it, the trip gets really long, and really slow. You don\u2019t want to [play] catch up on the road. Unfortunately we need better than .500, better than five out of eight points. We need close to all of them. So, we better get that first one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers could be getting some of their injured players back as early as today.<\/p>\n<p>Coach Paul Maurice said Dmitry Kulikov and Tomas Nosek are close to a return, with Jonah Gadjovich on the trip with the hopes he could come back as well. Seth Jones is not far off, either.<\/p>\n<p>That is good news for the Panthers who will have to make some moves in the coming days regardless.<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers, per <a href=\"https:\/\/puckpedia.com\/team\/florida-panthers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PuckPedia.com<\/a>, are about $2.5 million under the salary cap but need to find another $2.5 just to activate Jones and Kulikov off LTIR.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>ON DECK: GAME No. 60<br \/>\nFLORIDA PANTHERS at NEW YORK ISLANDERS\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When: Sunday, 6:30 p.m.<br \/>\nWhere: UBS Arena, Long Island<br \/>\nNational TV: ESPN<br \/>\nNational Streaming: ESPN+<br \/>\nRadio: WQAM; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM<br \/>\nPanthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932, NHL App<br \/>\nLast Season: Panthers Won 2-1<br \/>\nThis Season (Panthers Lead 1-0) \u2014 At Islanders: Sunday; March 28. At Florida: <a href=\"https:\/\/floridahockeynow.com\/florida-panthers-4-new-york-islanders-1-dec-7-2025-sunrise\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Panthers 4, Islanders 1 (Dec. 2)<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/teams\/FLA\/head2head.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All-time Regular Season Series:<\/a> Panthers lead 60-35-11, 8 ties<br \/>\nNext Up for the Panthers: Tuesday at New Jersey Devils, 7 (TNT\/HBO Max)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/floridahockeynow.com\/membership-account\/subscribe-to-fhn\/\" onclick=\"ga(&#039;send&#039;, &#039;event&#039;, { eventCategory: &#039;adclick&#039;, eventAction: &#039;click&#039;, eventLabel: &#039;fhn-plus-post&#039;});\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Get-FHN.png\" alt=\"Get FHN+ today!\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUNRISE \u2014 The end of the Florida Panthers season as we know it may just start tonight on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-511934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}