Last-minute Panthers News, reports, and updates heading into Panthers Vs. Red Wings...

The Florida Panthers have a bit of an issue with their fourth line lack of production or is there really lack of production we kind of have to look at this as a double-edged sword we're going to be talking about that fourth line more so Bokanji Imama and Garnett Hathaway taking a look at the numbers on the season what can the Panthers do to get more out of that fourth line and we're gonna take a look at tonight's matchup with the Detroit Red Wings hopefully a little bit of retribution compared to their first game where they got a beat down at home by those very same Red Wings. Guys this is Panthers Digest, I'm your host Greg Andrews. Comment, like, share, subscribe, hype for the video. I appreciate all you guys tuning in supporting me. The channel and the Florida Panthers. So to start things off, I'm actually going to be talking about, well, a little bit of kind of good news, kind of bad news. Well, Sanis Vilminas back home. It's Thursday. Guess what that means, guys? He's going to be seeing the doctors. We're going to find out what is going on with him because he has not skated. Paul Maurice said he will get looked at by our team doctors when we get back down to South Florida. They are back. He should get looked at today and hopefully we'll hear something along the lines of a return date for him to come back. Obviously the injury, if you go look, it is undisclosed at the moment, but I, like I said, I'm pretty positive. It's going to be along the concussion protocol thing, maybe his back or neck, who knows? I'm not going to speculate too much. Thank you so much, obviously. A blindside or cross-check hit into the boards could have multiple things going on. Let's hope he's actually okay and we'll be back sooner than later. So, moving forward and talking about this fourth line, complete lack of production offensively from this fourth line. They have been pretty bad in the offensive zone, but there's been a lot of shifting in terms of personnel on that fourth line. The two guys we've seen pretty much day in and day out for all 19 games has been Garnett Hathaway and Bokanji Imama. That's why the focus here is right there. You can see no production, but there is good that there is some good to take away from how these guys have played. It's the physical style that they bring to this team, the toughness. But I'm going to beg you this question right now. Would you rather have toughness over production on this team right now And in the future. Because that fourth line, I really strongly believe, will change when Marchand and Barkov come back. The fourth line, to me, should be Garnett Hathaway, Sanis Vilmanis, and Lars Eller. That's what we're going to be looking at. So, Boko Kondratiev will be on the way out. And Cole Schwent, Cole Reinhardt, I know Cole Reinhardt has actually been playing on the third line as of late. But we're going to see a shift, and I do believe that will be the fourth line once... Our two power players come back in Barkov and Marchand. It should be Lars Eller, Garnett Hathaway, and Sanis Vilmanis. And hopefully that line will have a lot more production because Eller finally has gotten his first goal. He's looking pretty good playing on those upper lines. Vilmanis started finding his own as well, but it's been an issue. The production has been pretty much non-existent. One assist for Garnett Hathaway on the season, a minus three rating. Not very good, guys. Ten minutes of time on ice. Six shots on goal, that's it. Boko Kondratiev is far worse, a minus six rating, 11 shots on goal. The biggest thing for these guys, though, is Garnett Hathaway leads the Florida Panthers and hits with 86. Bokanji Mama is third behind. Like I just said, Garnett Hathaway leads the team, then it's Brady Kachuk, then it's Boko Mama who has 50 hits. So not good in the offensive production side of things, but that toughness, that physical style of play that the Florida Panthers want. It's good, and it does help the team. That's the thing people need to realize is they are going out and they are putting up decent defensive numbers. For instance, in terms of the defensive play of high-danger shots, this season on 5-on-5, they've only allowed six goals when they're on the ice. Not bad defensively. But they need to have some sort of offensive upswing, and it's just not there. I'm going to still say I believe we should be patient for the time being until Marchand and, excuse me, Marchand and Barkov come back. We need to be patient and just kind of let things be what they are with the injuries that we currently have. Maybe once one of these guys scores a goal and the other gets an assist, the ball will start to roll forward in the right direction for us. Now, the question is this. If there are changes, who could we possibly bring to the table? That could be on that fourth line right now. Well, there really isn't many guys because Lars Eller started there. He's not there anymore. And in terms of all those centermen, there's not a single one of those guys that are going to go down to the fourth line. So let's keep rolling along here and take a look at the left wingers. Well, Bokanji Mama is already there. Vilmanis is hurt. Cole Reinhardt has been playing on the third line with Vilmanis being out. Gajevic is still battling his injury. And we still have no idea when the hell he's going to be back. So what are you going to do? You've got to keep Bokanji Mama there. And then we look at our right-wing players. There you go. Garnett Hathaway, who's already there. Cole Schwind, who's been on that fourth line already, not doing much either. Jack Devine was playing, sorry, they switched everything. Lars Eller's playing with Carter Verhaage and Reinhart, and Jack Devine was on that third line the other night. Again, it's been topsy-turvy. It's so hard to keep track of who's on what line with all the shifting and things that have been happening. But I don't know who you're going to move around to bring on that fourth line. It's really hard to say. Let me know what you think. Would you rather have toughness over production with those two guys in on that fourth line? Tell me what you think. So now let's move forward and take a look at tonight's matchup. And by the way, in terms of what is going to be happening with the goaltending, I think we're fine. Markstrom looked really good in the game against Columbus, but we're going to be playing a lot tougher teams in the next couple of weeks. And hopefully his, I mean, he was, he was feeling it. He had a lot of really good stops, some smart plays. And the defense was good too. I think Markstrom is going to start finding his own and really zoning in on what he needs to do because his defense, he's being able to read where their positioning is going to be. He looked better yesterday. Great save percentage, only one goal against. So that is tremendous. Finally above 900 for the save percentage. Congratulations. Awesome. So. Red Wings are on a losing streak right now. Face the Panthers tonight. Unfortunately, I don't think it is on whatever the network is that they have now. It's like Spot Sports or whatever. It's going to be on Hulu, Disney Plus, and ESPN Plus. So find it on there, guys. Hopefully you will be able to watch it. I'm thankful enough to have a package of all three of those. But. Everything favors the Florida Panthers. I'm not going to say anything else. I'm just going to say, you already know the team stats. There it is right in front of you guys. We need to do exactly what we just did in the last game. Our power play needs to be on point. Our PK needs to be on point. Obviously, with their 69.5% penalty kill, we need to take advantage of that every time that they commit a penalty. And we need to stop committing stupid penalties. We keep doing it. I don't know why, but they're just getting dumb now. Control your stick. You shouldn't be ever high sticking unless obviously you're trying to make a play on the puck and it bounces off somebody else's stick and hits him in the face. But if you're turning, making a move, whatever, and there's really no contact that you have with that player and the puck and their stick or whatever, and you're just, you know, your stick, you're just turning and you're bringing your stick up and it hits a guy in the face or you're trying to flick the puck, whatever it is. Control your stick. The tripping calls are kind of tough when guys are flying all over the place, but still, the interference ones should never happen. You got to be smarter and not commit that much if a guy clearly is not near the puck. But whatever, I'm not going to go into all the different penalties that are out there, but those should not happen. They've got to be smarter. I'm feeling good about this one tonight. Hopefully they keep the ball rolling. They really need these two points considering some of the teams in the Atlantic Division that got the two points last night. One of them is the... Lightning, so definitely need those two points this evening. In terms of goaltending, I already said, Markstrom has actually looked very good in his last two outings. Obviously not terrific in the one previous before Columbus, but I think he's getting his bearings back. He's looking good, .908 percentage, 2.56 goals against, 5-3-1 on the season with a shutout. Not sure who we're going to see in net. Obviously, Tarasov's numbers are a little bit smudged because he doesn't have a lot of games under his belt. 2-3-2, but I think we'll probably see Gibson in net. But we just can't keep throwing them at Gibson to win this one. Got to find those corners. Got to find the holes. Come on, guys. Let's get great on our shooting and find the open guys and have... We got to have Gibson or Tarasov, whichever one, moving laterally. Any goaltender. Not any. There's a couple out there who move tremendously laterally. But for these two guys, if we could just do cross ice passes, find the open guy, it's going to hit the back of the net. That's it. Just get them moving left to right, and they'll be caught out of position or get them moving too far back in the crease. It'll open up so much of that white netting in the back, and they'll stick it. So, guys, tell me what you think. Again, with Imama and Hathaway, do you want production over toughness? Because they bring toughness. We all know that. Mama likes to drop the gloves. He'll do it for anybody. Hathaway will lay a body on anybody and he'll start talking and punching around with the best of them. But would you want production more so now rather than the toughness and the physical aspect of their play? And then let me know, how do you feel about Vilmanis? What do you think the fourth line should be when Barkov and Marchand come back? Lay it on me. Put it in the comment section down below. Until next time, Go Cats!