Panthers visit DC to battle Capitals in matchup of teams on the rise
Florida is 6-2-1 over its past nine games while Washington comes in having won five of six
The Florida Panthers are hoping to make a quick business trip a successful one when they visit the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night.
Florida comes into the game fresh off a 5-4 overtime win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday at Amerant Bank Arena.
Through 11 games of the young season the Panthers hold a respectable 6-4-1 record, which isn't bad considering they've been without key players Aaron Ekblad, Brandon Montour and Sam Bennett.
This will be the first of three meetings between the Cats and the Capitals this season after Florida went a perfect 3-0-0 last year against the Caps.
Washington is currently wrapping up a five-game homestead in which they've won three of four so far.
Overall, the Capitals are 4-1-0 over their past five contests and have surrendered just 11 goals during the five-game span.
Superstar forward Alex Ovechkin has gotten off to a bit of a slow start to the season, at least by his standards. Through 10 games, Ovechkin has 2 goals and 8 points.
That's certainly nothing to sneeze at, but it's not the eye-popping offensive output we're come to expect from The Great Eight.
Darcy Kuemper is expected to get the start in goal for Washington. He's played well of late, with a .935 save percentage and 1.97 goals against average over his past three games (2-1-0).
He's one of only three goalies this season to record multiple wins in which he made at least 38 saves. The other two are Jake Oettinger and Petr Mrazek.
Across the ice, Sergei Bobrovsky is probable to patrol Florida's goal crease.
Bob has helped the Panthers picked up at least a point in each of his past four starts (3-0-1). Over his past seven appearances, Bobrovsky holds a 5-1-1 record and has stopped 181 of 194 shots, good for a save percentage of .914.
Here are the forward lines and defensive pairings Florida is projected to deploy tonight in DC:
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Anton Lundell – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Kevin Stenlund – Nick Cousins
Ryan Lomberg – Steven Lorentz – William Lockwood
Gus Forsling – Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Josh Mahura – Mike Reilly
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