At the Rink: Avalanche at Panthers

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie will return from a three-game suspension against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday at BB&T Center (7:30 p.m. ET; ALT, FS-F).

Barrie was suspended for a hit against Anaheim Ducks defenseman Simon Despres in an Oct. 16 game. Colorado lost two of the three.

"It was frustrating. Three games doesn't seem like much, but when you're sitting out it seems like a long time," Barrie told the Avalanche website after practice Monday. "It's kind of unfortunate that the stretch of games we had seemed to be spaced out a bit. It was definitely a long wait for me, so I'm excited to get back in there."

The Avalanche have struggled and are last in the Central Division, six points behind their three closest competitors.

Colorado didn't hold a morning skate, but coach Patrick Roy said Monday goalie Reto Berra would start. Berra allowed two goals on 75 shots in splitting his first two and has a .975 save percentage.

He will face a Panthers team that is getting contributions from up and down the lineup.

In a 6-2 win against the Dallas Stars on Saturday that ended a three-game losing streak, 14 of the 18 Panthers skaters had at least one point.

"Everybody's scoring some goals. We're working hard from our first line to our fourth line," coach Gerard Gallant told the Panthers website following the morning skate. "Everybody's contributing a little bit and that's what it takes to win hockey games."

Goalie Roberto Luongo will start for the Panthers after backup Al Montoya played against the Stars.

"Colorado's a dangerous team," Gallant said. "They've got some real young talent like we do. I don't think they're playing as well as they'd like to right now, but they're a team that comes in here a real good hockey club."

Here are the projected lineups:

AVALANCHE

Dennis Everberg -- Matt Duchene -- Jarome Iginla

Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Jack Skille

Alex Tanguay -- Carl Soderberg -- Blake Comeau

Cody McLeod -- John Mitchell -- Mikhail Grigorenko

Francois Beauchemin -- Erik Johnson

Nikita Zadorov -- Nate Guenin

Tyson Barrie -- Nick Holden

Reto Berra

Semyon Varlamov

Injured: Brad Stuart (back), Jesse Winchester (concussion symptoms)

Scratched: Brandon Gormley

PANTHERS

Jonathan Huberdeau – Nick Bjugstad – Jaromir Jagr

Brandon Pirri – Dave Bolland – Reilly Smith

Jussi Jokinen – Derek MacKenzie – Quinton Howden

Shawn Thornton – Vincent Trocheck – Connor Brickley

Brian Campbell – Aaron Ekblad

Willie Mitchell – Erik Gudbranson

Dmitry Kulikov – Alex Petrovic

Roberto Luongo

Al Montoya

Injured: Aleksander Barkov (upper body)

Scratched: Steven Kampfer, Dylan Olsen

Status report: At practice Monday, Everberg moved onto the line with Duchene and Iginla; Skille joined Landeskog and MacKinnon. "In these opportunities it's easy to think that you've got to change and kind of go up to their skill level, but I'm just going to do what got me there and what got me this opportunity and not change anything," Skille said.

Who's hot: Iginla, the NHL's second-leading goal scorer among active players, had the 592nd of his career in a 4-3 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday. … Jagr, the active leader, has goals in consecutive games, giving him 728 for his career, three behind Marcel Dionne for fourth all-time.