Projected Lineups for the Panthers vs Lightning - 4/30/25 - The Hockey Writers - Projected Lineups

The Florida Panthers take on the Tampa Bay Lightning in their Game 5 first round matchup at Amalie Arena tonight. Here are the projected/expected lineups sourced from NHL.com staff writers, independent correspondents, and others.

PANTHERS (A3) at LIGHTNING (A2)

Eastern Conference First Round, Game 5

7:30 p.m. ET; FDSNSUN, SCRIPPS, ESPN2, TVAS2, SN360

Florida leads best-of-7 series 3-1

Panthers projected lineup

Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart
Evan Rodrigues — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand
A.J. Greer — Nico Sturm — Jesper Boqvist

Gustav Forsling — Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis — Nate Schmidt

Sergei Bobrovsky
Vitek Vanecek

Scratched: Tomas Nosek, Jonah Gadjovich, Jaycob Megna, Mackie Samoskevich

Injured: None

Suspended: Aaron Ekblad

Status report:

Ekblad, a defenseman, will serve the first of his two-game suspension for elbowing Hagel during Game 4 on Monday.

Latest for THW:

Lightning projected lineup

Jake Guentzel — Brayden Point — Nikita Kucherov
Nick Paul — Anthony Cirelli — Gage Goncalves
Conor Geekie — Yanni Gourde — Mitchell Chaffee
Zemgus Girgensons — Luke Glendening

Victor Hedman — JJ Moser
Ryan McDonagh — Erik Cernak
Emil Lilleberg — Nick Perbix
Darren Raddysh

Andrei Vasilevskiy
Jonas Johansson

Scratched: Cam Atkinson, Max Crozier

Injured: Oliver Bjorkstrand (lower body), Brandon Hagel (undisclosed)

Status report

Hagel, a forward, left the game after the hit and did not return and won’t play Wednesday. … Cirelli and Hedman did not participate in morning skate (maintenance), but will be in the lineup. …Crozier, a defenseman, was recalled from Syracuse of the American Hockey League on Wednesday.

Latest for THW: