This will be the first meeting of the season between the Panthers and Lightning

The Florida Panthers will exit the NHL’s annual holiday break looking to build on a strong start to their 2023-24 campaign.

Despite missing several key players for more than half the season, Florida currently holds a 19-12-2 record, sitting tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs for second place in the Atlantic Division.

One point behind Florida is the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The two cross-state rivals have yet to meet so far this season, but that will change on Wednesday night at Amalie Arena.

Tampa enters the game having won three straight games and seven of ten overall.

Florida’s penalty kill has remained a major strength of the team as we approach the midway point of the season.

The Panthers have killed ten straight opposing power plays over their past four games, and overall, no team has been better on the PK than Florida since late November (92.2% kill rate since Nov. 20).

Wednesday’s game in Tampa will be the first of a three games in four nights set for the Panthers. They’ll be back in South Florida to host the New York Rangers on Friday night and Montreal Canadiens on Saturday.

Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky is expected to start two of the three games for the Cats and should be nice and fresh coming off the holiday break.

Bob holds a 15-9-1 record to go with a 2.50 goals against average, a.910 save percentage and a pair of shutouts.

There are only three goaltenders in the league with more victories this season, and they all play in the Western Conference; Thatcher Demko and Alexandar Georgiev have 17 wins while Connor Hellebuyck has 16.

Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings ahead of Wednesday’s tilt in Tampa:

Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart

Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinin – Anton Lundell – Nick Cousins

Jonah Gadjovich – Kevin Stenlund – Ryan Lomberg

Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola – Brandon Montour

Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Dmitry Kulikov

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