Florida and Pittsburgh have each won three straight but are in much different places in the standings
The Florida Panthers will get back on the road this week looking to continue their recent winning ways.
Florida will look to make it four consecutive wins when they lock horns with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night from PPG Paints Arena.
After dropping six of seven, the Cats have earned victories over Toronto and Carolina (twice) by a combined score of 17-4.
Now they'll face a Penguins team riding arguably its best stretch of hockey of the season.
Pittsburgh has struggled throughout the season, enduring a six-game winless skid in early October which, after a couple wins, was followed by a 2-8-0 run that had them near the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
Now the Pens have reeled off three straight wins for the first time this season and are just three points behind Philadelphia for the final Wild Card spot in the East.
Tristan Jarry has been acting as Pittsburgh starting goaltender lately, and if that trend continues, he’ll face the Panthers on Tuesday night.
Florida will likely go with Spencer Knight in goal, fresh off his impressive 6-0 shutout victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday.
Knight will be backed up by Chris Driedger – who was recalled from the AHL's Charlotte Checkers on Monday – because Florida's starting goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stayed behind in South Florida for the birth of his second child.
In order to make the move and be salary cap compliant, Florida sent rookie Mackie Samoskevich to AHL Charlotte.
Samoskevich is waivers exempt, meaning Florida doesn’t have to risk losing him to another team in order to send him to the AHL, allowing the Panthers to operate below the salary cap while adding Driedger’s salary.
Here are the Panthers projected lines and for Tuesday's matchup with the Pens:
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jonah Gadjovich
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Nate Schmidt
Dmitry Kulikov – Adam Boqvist
Scratches: Uvis Balinskis
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