Rumor: Florida Panthers sandbagging for easier playoff opponent.

One of the more interesting fan conspiracy theories going around the National Hockey League over the last several days ramped up to the extreme over the weekend when the team that is the focus of this conspiracy theory made moves that appear to give validity to the whacky theory.

Let's begin by explaining the theory itself. So at one point this season it appeared as though the Florida Panthers, our reigning Stanley Cup champions, were destined to win the NHL's Atlantic Division. For several weeks now however the Panthers have been slipping down the standings, so much so that some of the more paranoid among us have begun to speculate about whether or not the Panthers might be doing so intentionally.

The idea here would be for the Panthers to secure an easier first round matchup in the Stanley Cup playoffs by losing on purpose, and losing enough that they would drop all the way down to the Wild Card slot where they would eventually face the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Well on Sunday the Panthers poured gasoline on to the fire when they made the move to sit several of their regular players in what some fans viewed as a clear attempt to sandbag on the part of the Panthers. While some of the absences were due to injury or suspension, that wasn't the case for everyone and here is a short list of the names that were absent from the lineup:

Matthew Tkachuk
Aleksander Barkov
Sam Reinhart
Sam Bennett
Nico Sturm
Aaron Ekblad
Dmitry Kulikov

This is the lineup that the Panthers had out on the ice, against a divisional opponent no less, on Sunday:

Luostarinen - Lundell - Marchand
Verhaeghe - Rodrigues - Puljujarvi
Greer - Nosek - Gadjovich
Samoskevich - Asplund - Boqvist

Mikkola - Jones
Megna - Balinskis
Kiersted - Schmidt

Vanecek

As I mentioned this poured gasoline on to the fire of what had only been a fringe conspiracy theory prior to Sunday. After the news broke on Sunday however the conspiracy exploded on social media and in the hockey community, with former NHL player Paul Bissonnette even making mention of it during a segment on TNT.

"Somehow Florida, a great team, is gonna keep losing down the stretch?" asked Bissonnette while wearing a tinfoil hat on air. "$49 million right now is sitting in a press box. This is an inside job and Gary Bettman needs to look into it."

Bissonnette doubled down on those comments in hilarious fashion, imploring the NHL commissioner to investigate the Florida Panthers and their head coach.

"He needs to do his job and look into what Paul Maurice are trying to do to my Toronto Maple Leafs," added Bissonnette. "Gary do your job!"