Florida Panthers: Game Preview, Lineups for Dec. 3 Game vs. Pittsburgh Penguins

The Florida Panthers look to extend their winning streak to four games against Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Florida Panthers head into the Steel City looking to extend their winning streak to four games against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

They will have their work cut out for them against a Pittsburgh team that has won its past three games to crawl back within three points of the final Eastern Conference wild card spot after a putrid start to the season.

The usual suspects — Sidney Crosby (25 points) and Evgeni Malkin (22 points) — have played a big role in making that happen.

Still, the Penguins sit at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, which poses a challenge for the Panthers.

In Florida’s stretch of six losses in its past seven games leading into its three-game winning streak, it failed to get to the emotional level necessary to play its style of game when taking on a cellar dweller.

They immediately got back to that style in a three-game Thanksgiving weekend set against the Carolina Hurricanes and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

”I think we got back to our mentality and mindset of playoff hockey,” Evan Rodrigues said. “We were a lot more physical in the past three than we were in the previous seven and it worked out in our favor.”

It’s now time to put that to practice against a team on the outside looking in.

“It’s a good time to find out,” Rodrigues said when asked about his expectations regarding the team’s emotional level.

“You play 82 games to find these things and you have to find a way to get up for every game. We’ve had tough playoff opponents, we had a stretch of 10 or so — minus Chicago — where it was a little easier to get up for a game. We have to find a way.

“You can lose to any team in this league very easily. You have to find a way to get up, you have to find the emotion again, and if we do that, we’ll be OK.”

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THE NEWS

Spencer Knight will start in goal for the Panthers against the Penguins tonight.

Sergei Bobrovsky is back in Florida on paternity leave, meaning Chris Driedger will back Knight up. Mackie Samoskevich was temporarily sent back to AHL Charlotte due to salary cap restraints.

Jonah Gadjovich will draw into the lineup.

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Today’s game will air at 7:00 p.m. EST and will be broadcasted on Scripps Sports and the Panthers Plus app. It will also be available on ESPN+ for out-of-market viewers.

For more information on how to catch Panthers games this season, visit nhl.com/panthers/info/how-to-watch.

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PANTHERS PROJECTED LINEUP

Evan Rodrigues — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart

Carter Verhaeghe — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Jesper Boqvist

A.J. Greer — Tomas Nosek — Jonah Gadjovich

Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola — Nate Schmidt

Dmitry Kulikov — Adam Boqvist

Spencer Knight

Chris Driedger

Scratched: Uvis Balinskis, Sergei Bobrovsky (paternity leave)

AHL Charlotte (temporarily, salary cap): Mackie Samoskevich

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PITTSBURGH PENGUINS PROJECTED LINEUP

Rickard Rakell — Sidney Crosby — Bryan Rust

Drew O'Connor — Evgeni Malkin — Philip Tomasino

Michael Bunting — Blake Lizotte —Anthony Beauvillier

Matt Nieto — Noel Acciari — Kevin Hayes

Matt Grzelcyk — Kris Letang

Marcus Pettersson — Erik Karlsson

Owen Pickering — Ryan Shea

Tristan Jarry

Alex Nedeljkovic

(Lines via DKPittsburghSports.com)

*Opposing team lines subject to change.