Florida and Tampa Bay will play each other three times over the next five days
A pair of sunbelt hockey rivals are meeting on neutral ground for an exhibition matchup on Tuesday night.
The Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning will take the ice in Orlando for their first of three preseason games in a five-day span.
Florida comes in with a 3-2-0 preseason record while Tampa has won three of its four games.
Until this point, Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice has deployed rosters comprised mostly of younger players and those fighting for one of a few NHL spots.
That changes this week, as Maurice has said the focus will switch from evaluating players to preparing the NHL guys for Opening Night, which is nine days away.
Below you’ll find Florida’s roster for Tuesday’s game in O-Town.
Based off the past couple days of practice at the Ice Den in Coral Springs, here are the projected lines and pairings:
Carter Verhaeghe – Kevin Stenlund – Evan Rodrigues
Mackie Samoskevich – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Sam Reinhart
Ryan Lomberg – Steven Lorentz – Nick Cousins
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Gus Forsling
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Mike Reilly – Casey Fitzgerald
Sergei Bobrovsky is expected to get the start Tuesday, and at least one of the two remaining preseason games.
During Florida's morning skate, they did some power play work and ran the following units:
PP1: Tkachuk - Reinhart - Rodrigues - Bennett - Ekman-Larsson
PP2: Luostarinen - Samoskevich - Verhaeghe - Lundell - Forsling
In terms of positioning, Tkachuk and Luostarinen worked netfront, Reinhart and Samoskevich as bumper, the remaining forwards flanked and the defenseman worked the top.
Maurice said Sasha Barkov is still under the weather so he isn’t traveling with the Panthers to Central Florida, but he’s hopeful that Barkov will be able to practice on Friday and play in Saturday’s preseason finale.
Brett Ritchie, who has played well while on a PTO with Florida, will travel with the team and could play on Thursday.
