The Panthers are still waiting on the 2 players who define them. Aleksander Barkov and Brad Marchand skated with the team for the first time since their knee injuries, and Paul Maurice said they're "within two weeks" of coming back. That's a real timeline, but Thursday is almost certainly too early for either of them. Florida's results without them have been uneven: 2-3 in the last 5, with the loss to Detroit, a 5-3 win over Chicago, losses at Washington and Boston, and then the win in Columbus.
Detroit played its way into the first meeting and won it, scoring 5 in Florida's building. Since then the Wings' offense has dried up while the Panthers' has picked up, with Bennett carrying more of the load as the No. 1 center. That puts the question for Thursday on Detroit's forwards. With Kasper and Appleton back, can they get back to the kind of game that beat Florida 9 days earlier, or does the 2-goals-in-2-games version show up again? Both teams played Tuesday, so neither one gets a rest edge. Florida gets to sleep in its own bed. Detroit flies in from St. Louis with a stop in Tampa still to come before the trip ends.
The injury list is still a big part of Florida's story. Sandis Vilmanis is out a few more games with an undisclosed injury, and Jonah Gadjovich is out indefinitely. Until Barkov and Marchand return, the Panthers are a good team getting by on Bennett, Sam Reinhart and their defense, not the team they'll be by December. For Detroit, this is the stretch where getting healthy has to start showing up as wins. It has dropped 2 straight on the trip, and 1-goal losses only stay bad luck for so long.
