Tampa Bay @ Florida preview

Last Meeting ( Oct 5, 2019 ) Tampa Bay 3, Florida 4

The Florida Panthers have won three of the first four contests on their season-high, nine-game homestand and begin a challenging week with a matchup against the rival Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night. The Panthers, who play the New York Islanders and Boston later in the week, gave up one goal each in victories over Columbus (Saturday) and San Jose (Sunday) last weekend.

“I thought we played one of our most complete games of the season,” Florida defenseman Mike Matheson told reporters after scoring his first goal of the season Sunday. “I think we’re really starting to come together as a team. … Early in the year, we were letting up four, five, six goals sometimes. It’s pretty difficult if you’re giving up that much.” The Panthers will test their defense against the Lightning, who led the league in scoring entering the week and have found the back of the net 39 times in the past eight meetings - going 7-1-0 in the process - despite losing at Florida 4-3 on Oct. 5. Tampa Bay continued a see-saw season Monday with a 5-1 loss to the Islanders after producing one of its more complete efforts two days earlier to beat San Jose 7-1. “The big thing is we’ve got to make sure we’re not letting the losses slip into two-, three-game losing streaks,” Lightning defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said. “We want to make sure, if we do lose a game, we’re bouncing back like we’re going to do (Tuesday). … It’s tough. We have a grueling schedule coming up. Luckily, a lot of games are at home so we have to start taking advantage of it.”

TV: 7 p.m. ET, Sportsnet East, Sportsnet Ontario, Sportsnet Pacific, FS Sun (Tampa Bay), FS Florida

ABOUT THE LIGHTNING (14-11-3): Captain Steven Stamkos scored his 10th goal Monday to tie for the team lead with Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov, who tops the club with 31 points despite being kept off the scoresheet in the past two contests. Shattenkirk boasts seven assists in his last nine games after setting up Stamkos’ tally Monday while center Anthony Cirelli notched his third assist in the past two outings. Tyler Johnson (seven goals, 14 points) missed Monday’s contest with a lower-body injury and coach Jon Cooper told reporters after the game that the versatile forward would not play against Florida.

ABOUT THE PANTHERS (15-9-5): Sergei Bobrovsky, who has struggled through the first half of the season, stopped 63-of-65 shots the past two games and coach Joel Quenneville told reporters Sunday: “He was in control all game long. He had a very good weekend.” Captain Aleksander Barkov has three goals and four assists during a five-game point streak and is tied with fellow forward Jonathan Huberdeau for the team lead with 36 points. Defenseman Keith Yandle (97 career goals) has scored once and set up seven others during his five-game point streak while Brett Connolly boasts eight of his team-best 14 goals in the past 10 contests.

OVERTIME

1. Tampa Bay G Andrei Vasilevskiy (11-8-1), who was rested Monday, is 7-4-1 with a .914 save percentage in 13 career games against the Panthers.

2. Florida F Frank Vatrano had two points in the win over San Jose, matching the amount he produced in the previous 10 games.

3. Lightning F Mitchell Stephens had two hits and had a minus-2 rating in 8 minutes, 28 seconds during his NHL debut Monday.

PREDICTION: Lightning 4, Panthers 2