Before that, Detroit hosts St. Louis on Halloween. That game decides whether the Wings arrive in Florida hot or skidding, and it adds a flight south on top of the workload. Florida is off from its Thursday win until puck drop at 7:00 PM ET on Monday, November 2, so the Panthers are the club getting the clean rest here.
The Panthers' October came in 2 halves. They lost 5-1 at Ottawa and 4-0 at Pittsburgh, with 1 goal across those 2 games. Then they won 3 straight: 3-2 at Chicago, then 2 wins over Winnipeg by a combined 10-3. The last one was a 5-2 home win in which Sam Reinhart and Seth Jones both scored on the power play and Jones finished with 3 points. Florida is 8-4-2 heading into a weekend off, which is a strong record for a team missing this many bodies.
That injury list is the real story in Florida. Aleksander Barkov hurt his left knee on Oct. 1 in San Jose, and Brad Marchand went into the post at LA on Oct. 6. Both have now skated. Paul Maurice put Marchand at roughly 3 weeks out and Barkov at roughly 4, so expect neither on Monday. Jacob Markstrom is on IR too, along with Jonah Gadjovich. Florida built this record mostly without its captain and its agitator, and Jones has been a big part of why the power play has carried it lately.
So the matchup comes down to which shorthanded group holds up. Detroit has the healthier lineup on paper but a brand-new hole at center that it can't fill from the injury list. Florida has the bigger names out, but its losses are temporary and it has gotten used to playing without them. Raymond, Arvidsson and Alex DeBrincat against a Florida power play that has found its touch is the fun part. The St. Louis result will tell us which Detroit team actually gets on the plane.