Florida Panthers: Lines, Updates, Preview for Dec. 28 Game vs. Montreal Canadiens
The Florida Panthers look to come out of holiday break hot against struggling Montreal Canadiens.
The Florida Panthers may have left the holiday break with a few scratches, but they are coming out of the break with a real chance to set the tone for the season’s second half.
The struggling Montreal Canadiens are coming to town with a new face in net: Jakub Dobes, who will be making his NHL debut on Saturday afternoon.
Dobes, a 23-year-old netminder out of Czechia, was 9-3-1 with a .910 save percentage this season with the AHL’s Laval Rocket.
The 2020 fifth round pick is currently in his second professional season after signing with Montreal out of Ohio State University.
Granted, who is starting in net has been proven to not mean much after the Panthers were shut out by Jonas Johansson in their last game before the break, but the team in front of Dobes hasn’t been doing so hot either.
They are 14-17-3 and had just gotten lit up by the Columbus Blue Jackets in their last game before the break.
The Panthers have struggled to kick their game into gear against struggling teams — notably losing to Chicago in November and giving up five goals a piece in a two-game set in Pennsylvania— but they’ll need all the help they can get with Niko Mikkola out of the lineup.
THE NEWS
Spencer Knight will start in net for the Florida Panthers.
Today’s game will air at 1:00 p.m. EST and will be broadcasted on Scripps Sports. It is available for streaming on Panthers+ for those in Florida’s broadcast territory.
For more information on how to catch Panthers games this season, visit nhl.com/panthers/info/how-to-watch.
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 — Mackie Samoskevich
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Nate Schmidt — Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis — Adam Boqvist
Spencer Knight
Sergei Bobrovsky
Scratched: Adam Boqvist
Injured: Niko Mikkola (DTD), Jonah Gadjovich
MONTREAL CANADIENS PROJECTED LINEUP
Cole Caufield — Nick Suzuki — Juraj Slafkovsky
Alex Newhook — Kirby Dach — Patrik Laine
Josh Anderson — Christian Dvorak — Brendan Gallagher
Emil Heineman — Jake Evans — Joel Armia
Lane Hutson — Mike Matheson
Kaiden Guhle — Alexandre Carrier
Amber Xhekaj — David Savard
Jakub Dobes
Sam Montembeault
(Lines via DailyFaceoff.com)
*Opposing team lines subject to change.