Preview: Coyotes at Panthers

GAME 74:
Coyotes (36-31-6) at Panthers (32-29-12)
After a two-day break from games, Arizona will continue its four-game road trip with a match vs. Florida on Thursday night.

WHERE:BB&T Center | WHEN: 4 p.m. (AZ time) | TV:FOX Sports Arizona Plus | RADIO:ESPN 620 AM

ABOUT THE 'YOTES:
• Arizona will enter the game with 78 points, one ahead of Minnesota for the second wildcard spot in the Western Conference standings, with nine games to play. Colorado is two points behind, and Chicago and Vancouver trail by four.
• The Coyotes are 7-4-1 vs. Florida since the start of the 2011-12 season, but they've lost four straight games played at the BB&T Center. Arizona last defeated the Panthers in Florida on March 11, 2014.
• Darcy Kuemper will make his 15th consecutive start in goal. Kuemper has allowed just seven goals in his past four starts while stopping 117 of 124 shots, a .944 save percentage. His 19 wins since Jan. 1 are the second most in the NHL during that span.
• Niklas Hjalmarsson will enter the game ranked third in the NHL in blocked shots with 170, trailing only New Jersey's Andy Greene (191) and Edmonton's Kris Russell (171). With nine games left, Hjalmarsson likely will set a new career-high for blocks; he totaled 181 in 2016-17.

• The Coyotes have scored at least one first-period goal in 10 consecutive games for the first time since Oct. 13 - Nov. 6, 1997, during the team's second season in Arizona.
• Jason Demers, who played 81 games for Florida in 2016-17, is expected to skate in his 600th career NHL game.
• Derek Stepan, who hasn't played since suffering a lower-body injury on Feb. 28, is nearing a return to the lineup after a faster than anticipated recovery process. Stepan was originally expected to miss four to six weeks, but he likely will play this weekend, if not tonight.
ABOUT THE PANTHERS:
• Florida has lost two games in a row after winning four straight, and is eight points behind Columbus for the second wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference standings with nine games to play ... The Panthers rank second in the NHL in power-play efficiency at 26.9 percent ... Aleksander Barkov leads the team and ranks 14th in the League with 85 points. He will enter the game with a seven-game point streak (four goals, 13 assists) ... Mike Hoffman has scored a career-best 33 goals, the most scored by a first-year Panther in franchise history ... Keith Yandle needs one point to set a franchise record for points in a season by a defenseman. He'll enter the game with 57 ... Roberto Luongo is expected to start in goal for the Panthers after rookie Sam Montembeault started the previous six games.

'YOTES QUOTES:
• "Everybody is more than enough motivated to play these last nine games as hard as we can. We know it's pretty tight in the standings, so the playoffs pretty much start now. It's pretty much every single point from now on is huge for us. So we know that these three games that are left on this trip are going to be a big part of what's to come." -- Niklas Hjalmarsson
• "They obviously have a very good power play with a lot of high-skill guys. We want to stay out of the box. That was a big focus of ours in Tampa, too, and we did that. It's definitely part of the game plan, but if we do give them those opportunities we have to get the kills." -- Alex Goligoski
• "We can only worry about Florida tonight. We can't worry about the next game. When you look big picture, that's when you get in trouble." -- Rick Tocchet