Panthers at Bruins preview

PANTHERS (8-4-5) at BRUINS (11-3-3)
7 p.m. ET; SN, NESN, FS-F, NHL.TV

Boston, which is 7-0-2 at home and is the only NHL team without a regulation home defeat, can stretch its point streak at TD Garden to 10 games, the longest since the 1976-77 Bruins opened the season 10-0-1 in their first 11 games at Boston Garden.
The Bruins will try to end a three-game winless streak overall (0-2-1).
Center Aleksander Barkov, with nine points (five goals, four assists) in a five-game goal/point streak, can score a goal in his sixth straight for the Panthers, which would mark the second-longest goal streak in their history. Pavel Bure scored at least one goal in seven consecutive games for Florida from March 11-23, 2001.
The Panthers are 3-1-1 in their past five games and 6-2-2 in their past 10.
Center Noel Acciari will play with Florida at TD Garden for the first time since leaving Boston to sign a three-year contract with the Panthers on July 1.

Players to watch

Panthers forward Jonathan Huberdeau has eight points (four goals, four assists) in a five-game point streak.
Bruins forward David Pastrnak has 30 points (15 goals, 15 assists) in his past 15 games.

They said it

"We're coming into this test tonight against a team that's angry. So we've got to make sure we're ready to start the right way." -- Panthers coach Joel Quenneville
"Entries, this is a very good team at defending the blue line, but [Matt Grzelcyk] is good, he'll make a good first pass, so we'll ask him to do that. … Similar to what we ask Torey, just Torey's pretty creative at making adjustments on the fly." -- Boston coach Bruce Cassidy on having defenseman Matt Grzelcyk fill in for the injured Torey Krug on the Bruins' top-ranked power play

Panthers projected lineup

Jonathan Huberdeau -- Aleksander Barkov -- Evgenii Dadonov
Mike Hoffman -- Brian Boyle -- Brett Connolly
Frank Vatrano -- Vincent Trocheck -- Denis Malgin
Dryden Hunt -- Noel Acciari -- Colton Sceviour
Mark Pysyk -- Aaron Ekblad
Mike Matheson -- Anton Stralman
Keith Yandle -- Josh Brown
Sergei Bobrovsky
Sam Montembeault
Scratched: None
Injured:Jayce Hawryluk (upper body), MacKenzie Weegar (upper body)

Bruins projected lineup

Brad Marchand -- Patrice Bergeron -- David Pastrnak
Danton Heinen -- David Krejci -- Charlie Coyle
Anders Bjork -- Par Lindholm -- Zach Senyshyn
Joakim Nordstrom -- Sean Kuraly -- Chris Wagner
Zdeno Chara -- Charlie McAvoy
Matt Grzelcyk -- Brandon Carlo
Urho Vaakanainen -- Connor Clifton
Tuukka Rask
Jaroslav Halak
Scratched:Steven Kampfer
Injured:Torey Krug (upper body), Jake DeBrusk (lower body), David Backes (upper body), Brett Ritchie (upper body), Kevan Miller (knee), John Moore (shoulder), Karson Kuhlman (fractured tibia)

Status report

Acciari returns to the lineup after missing three games and replaces Dominic Toninato, who was loaned to Springfield of the American Hockey League on Monday. … Vaakanainen replaces Krug, who will miss his first game since he was injured Sunday.

Stat pack

Dadonov has five points (two goals, three assists) in his past three games. … Marchand has 29 points (11 goals, 18 assists) in his past 16 games.