Paul Maurice tweaks his lineup for Game 3.
Paul Maurice has made just a single adjustment to his lineup ahead of Game 3 in Florida.
The Florida Panthers were victorious over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, but in spite of that Panthers head coach Paul Maurice has decided to eschew the old motto of 'If it aint broke don't fix it' and will be making changes to his lineup ahead of Game 3.
Maurice confirmed on Monday that Panthers forward Jesper Boqvist would be coming out of the lineup in favor of the returning AJ Greer. Both men have been used sparingly by Maurice when in the lineup but Boqvist has seen his ice time drop considerably in the Stanley Cup Final. In Game 1 he had less than 8 minutes of ice time over 14 shifts, totaling just 7 minutes and 58 seconds, and his 19 shifts in Game 2 only amounted to 8 minutes and 41 seconds of ice time.
That may not seem like that steep of a decrease but when you consider the fact that both Game 1 and Game 2 went to double overtime, Maurice has shown relatively little faith in the Swedish forward in this series. It remains to be seen if Greer will see more ice time in Game 3, or if Maurice will use him as sparingly as he has Boqvist thus far in this series.
The Edmonton Oilers have made changes of their own with some fairly significant changes to their blue line and they may very well be forced into a change to their forward group in Game 3 with the status of forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins still unclear.
