Vegas @ Florida preview

Last Meeting ( Feb 28, 2019 ) Florida 5, Vegas 6

The Vegas Golden Knights will try to finish a daunting stretch of eight straight games away from home with a winning record when they visit the surging Florida Panthers on Thursday night. The Golden Knights are 3-3-1 during the road swing, which sandwiched the All-Star break, after seeing a two-game winning streak end with a 4-2 loss at Tampa Bay on Tuesday despite holding the red-hot Lightning to 18 shots.

“Yeah the points matter but for me the process matters more,” Vegas coach Peter DeBoer told reporters after the loss. “If we won tonight and didn’t play well or I didn’t see the type of game I’m seeing out of our group, I would be worried. We lost but if we stick with this type of game we’ll have a chance to win every night.” The home team has won all four of the meetings between the Golden Knights and Florida and the Panthers will visit Vegas on Feb. 22 as they continue to fight for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Florida entered Wednesday sitting in third place in the Atlantic Division after gaining a point in the 1-0 overtime loss at Columbus on Tuesday as it prepares to play four of the next six contests at home before leaving again for a five-game Western trip. “We still had the one point, which is a good thing,” Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky told reporters after the loss. “We put it behind us and move on. It’s already done. There’s nothing we can do about it. The biggest game is the next one.”

TIME: 7 p.m. ET. TV: AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, FS Florida

ABOUT THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS (27-21-7): Veteran center Paul Stastny returned to the ice after getting hit in the face with a puck in the second period and tied the game 2-2 in the third for his fourth goal in six games Tuesday. Max Pacioretty (21 goals) and Mark Stone (18) were kept off the scoresheet against Tampa Bay, but lead the team in points with 48 - six more than fellow forward Reilly Smith, who is tied for the club’s top spot in goals. Defenseman Zach Whitecloud had two shots in his second NHL game and DeBoer told reporters: “He’s got good composure for a young guy. He doesn’t panic with the puck. And that’s the game today.”

ABOUT THE PANTHERS (29-17-6): Captain Aleksander Barkov (16 goals, 54 points) could miss his third straight game with a lower-body injury. All-Star Jonathan Huberdeau was kept off the scoresheet along with everyone else in the lineup Tuesday and has one of his team-high 66 points in the last three games. Defenseman MacKenzie Weegar returned to the lineup Tuesday after missing 15 games with an upper-body injury, recording one shot and two hits in 13 minutes, 29 seconds of ice time.

OVERTIME

1. Florida RW Evgenii Dadonov leads the team with 23 goals, but has yet to score in three games this month.

2. Vegas G Marc-Andre Fleury (20-13-4 this season) is 16-9-2 with a .924 save percentage all time versus Florida.

3. The Panthers are only 9-for-14 penalty killing in their last five games.

PREDICTION: Golden Knights 4, Panthers 2