Florida Panthers: Lines, Updates, Preview for Feb. 4 Game vs. Washington Capitals
The Florida Panthers will take on the league’s best team after taking the Stanley Cup to the White House.
Photo via Jameson Olive (Twitter)
After celebrating last year’s Stanley Cup victory at the White House, the Florida Panthers will look to refocus their attention to one of this year’s best regular season teams.
The Washington Capitals sit atop the Eastern Conference at 34-11-7 — sitting two points behind the Winnipeg Jets for the most in the NHL, but holding the best points percentage in the league at .721.
There is a lot of intrigue surrounding this team.
Alex Ovechkin enters the game 18 goals away from breaking the NHL’s goal record, leading the Capitals with 24 goals so far this season, while the rest of the team has adopted a playoff style of hockey similar to the Panthers under second-year coach Spencer Carbery.
Youngsters Aliaksei Portas (21 goals, 43 points) and Connor McMichael (18 goals, 39 points) have also broken out to become headliners on that team.
In an Eastern Conference plagued with inconsistency, the Capitals have done the opposite. They are 7-1-2 in their past 10 games, allowing the least amount of goals-for per game (1.70) and scoring a solid 3.0 goals-for per game in that span.
It will be a tough challenge to start a two-game road trip for the defending Stanley Cup champions.
THE NEWS
Sergei Bobrovsky will start in net for the Florida Panthers.
Mackie Samoskevich will remain out of the lineup with an illness, but is expected to return on Thursday against the St. Louis Blues.
Today’s game will air at 7:00 p.m. EST and will be broadcasted on Scripps Sports. It will also be available for streaming on Panthers+.
For more information on how to catch Panthers games this season, visit nhl.com/panthers/info/how-to-watch.
FLORIDA PANTHERS PROJECTED LINEUP
Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart
Jesper Boqvist— Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Evan Rodrigues
Jonah Gadjovich — Tomas Nosek — A.J. Greer
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov
Nate Schmidt — Uvis Balinskis
Sergei Bobrovsky
Spencer Knight
Sick: Mackie Samoskevich
WASHINGTON CAPITALS PROJECTED LINEUP
Alex Ovechkin — Dylan Strome — Tom Wilson
Aliaksei Protas — Pierre-Luc Dubois — Connor McMichael
Taylor Raddysh — Lars Eller — Ethen Frank
Brandon Duhaime — Nic Dowd — Andrew Mangiapane
Rasmus Sandin — John Carlson
Jakob Chychrun — Trevor van Riemsdyk
Martin Fehervary — Matt Roy
Logan Thompson
Charlie Lindgren
(Lines via DailyFaceoff.com)
*Opposing team lines subject to change.