Panthers at Lightning preview

PANTHERS (32-25-6) at LIGHTNING (45-17-4)
7:30 p.m. ET; SUN, FS-F, NHL.TV

Florida is one point behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference. The Blue Jackets host the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday.
The Lightning are 6-0-1 in their past seven games and lead the Boston Bruins by six points for first place in the Atlantic Division.

Players to watch

Panthers forward Aleksander Barkov has 10 points (five goals, five assists) during a six-game point streak.
Lightning center Steven Stamkos 17 points (eight goals, nine assists) in the past 13 games.

They said it

"We're playing pretty good right now and I think we have confidence. It's a really good team on the other side. We have to play well for the first 10 minutes to get the tempo going. We really need these two points right now." -- Panthers forward Jonathan Huberdeau
"We're up against a really hot team that is clearly trying to make a push to make the playoffs. They've won six straight and eight of 10 (8-2-0). You can see they're having fun, doing all the things they need to win games and beating good teams." -- Lightning coach Jon Cooper, on the Panthers.

Panthers projected lineup

Evgenii Dadonov -- Aleksander Barkov -- Nick Bjugstad
Jonathan Huberdeau -- Vincent Trocheck -- Connor Brickley
Jamie McGinn -- Jared McCann -- Maxim Mamin
Micheal Haley -- Derek MacKenzie -- Colton Sceviour
Keith Yandle -- Aaron Ekblad
Mike Matheson -- Mark Pysyk
MacKenzie Weegar -- Alexander Petrovic
Roberto Luongo
James Reimer
Scratched: Radim Vrbata, Ian McCoshen, Denis Malgin
Injured: Frank Vatrano (lower body)

Lightning projected lineup

Alex Killorn -- Steven Stamkos -- Nikita Kucherov
Yanni Gourde -- Brayden Point -- J.T. Miller
Cory Conacher -- Tyler Johnson -- Ryan Callahan
Adam Erne --
Anthony Cirelli
-- Chris Kunitz
Victor Hedman -- Anton Stralman
Mikhail Sergachev -- Dan Girardi
Braydon Coburn -- Andrej Sustr
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Louis Domingue
Scratched:Slater Koekkoek, Jake Dotchin, Cedric Paquette
Injured:Ondrej Palat (lower body), Ryan McDonagh (upper body), Peter Budaj (lower body)

Status report

Vatrano was placed on injured reserve Monday. ... McDonagh participated in the morning skate with a red no-contact jersey but Cooper said he is at least a couple of games away from playing. Palat also skated but is a few weeks away from returning to the lineup.

Stat pack

Luongo is 5-0-0 with a .934 save percentage in his past five starts. ... Kucherov has 19 points (six goals, 13 assists) in the past 11 games.