by The Florida Panthers are finally wrapping up their wild and crazy five-game road trip.
Between the hustle and bustle of scoring, international travel and battling a locker room virus that has affected several players, the Panthers have a chance to go home with a roadie track record when they arrive in Minnesota.
The Wild are off to a strong start to the season and currently hold a record of 20-7-4, 44 points and second place in the Central Division, one point behind Winnipeg.
Interestingly, they were much better on the road than at home. Minnesota enters Wednesday’s game tied with Washington and New Jersey for the most road wins (12) in the NHL.
However, the Wild have only won eight of their 14 games at home. They have a record of 1-2 in their current five home games and a record of 2-3-0 in their last five games overall.
Star striker Kirill Kaprizov is well on his way to seriously considering the Hart Trophy this season.
He currently has 22 goals and 47 points, which puts him three points behind Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, who leads the league.
Kaprizov has scored two goals in each of his last two games and has scored a total of nine goals in his last ten games.
He is one of only two players in the NHL to have scored more goals than Sam Reinhart, who scored his 20th goal of the season in Edmonton on Monday.
In goal, Florida will face veteran Marc-Andre Fleury, who has had to play a larger role lately with starting goaltender Filip Gustavsson out with a lower-body injury.
For the Panthers, he will likely face Sergei Bobrovsky.
Bob has won five of his last six starts and will be looking for some redemption after his first meeting with Minnesota earlier this season.
In that October game, Bobrovsky was substituted after two periods and allowed five goals on just 16 shots. Florida ended up losing 5-1.
Here are the Panthers’ projected lineups and matchups for Wednesday’s meeting in Minny:
Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist
AJ Greer – Tomas Nosek – Mackie Samoskevich
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt
Scratch: Jonah Gadjovich, Adam Boqvist
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