Golden Knights at Panthers preview

GOLDEN KNIGHTS (30-11-3) at PANTHERS (18-19-6)
7:30 p.m. ET; SN360, TVA Sports, FS-F, ATTSN-RM, NHL.TV

With a regulation or overtime win, Vegas would have the same record as the Tampa Bay Lightning (31-11-3, 65 points through 45 games). Each team would have 29 regulation or overtims wins, but the Golden Knights would own the tiebreaker after completing a sweep of their season series with a 4-1 win at Tampa on Thursday.
Gallant coached the Panthers for parts of three seasons before being fired Nov. 27, 2016.
Vegas defeated Florida 5-2 at T-Mobile Arena on Dec. 17. Forward Jonathan Marchessault, who scored 30 goals for the Panthers last season, had a goal and two assists and former Panthers forward Reilly Smith had two assists.
The Panthers are playing for the first time since last Friday, when they lost 4-2 to the Calgary Flames.

Players to watch

Vegas forward William Karlsson has seven goals in eight games and nine goals in 11 games.
Panthers forward Evgenii Dadonov has two goals and three assists during a four-game point streak

They said it

"We're in the business of coaching and stuff like that happens all the time. I'm happy where I'm at, our team is playing real well and that's all I'm looking forward to." -- Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant on his return to BB&T Center
"I'm happy for him. I think he fully deserves it. He's a good coach. Nobody has a bad word to say about him. You see he's doing good work over there. Nobody thought that team would even make the playoffs and they're almost first in the League. It's fun to see that." --Panthers forward Jonathan Huberdeau on Gerard Gallant

Golden Knights projected lineup

Jonathan Marchessault -- William Karlsson -- Reilly Smith
David Perron -- Erik Haula -- James Neal
Brendan Leipsic -- Cody Eakin -- Alex Tuch
William Carrier -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Oscar Lindberg
Brayden McNabb -- Nate Schmidt
Shea Theodore -- Deryk Engelland
Brad Hunt -- Colin Miller
Marc-Andre Fleury
Malcolm Subban
Scratched: Ryan Carpenter, Jason Garrison
Injured:Tomas Nosek (upper body), Oscar Dansk (lower body), Jon Merrill (undisclosed), Luca Sbisa (hand)

Panthers projected lineup

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

Status report

Vegas did not have a morning skate. … Boughner said Luongo might practice next week when the Panthers are on the road. … Reimer will make his 17th consecutive start. He has started every game since Luongo was injured Dec. 4 against the New York Islanders.

Stat pack

Vegas is three wins away from matching the NHL record for an expansion team, set by the Panthers (33-34-17) and the Anaheim Ducks (33-46-5) in 1993-94. … Vegas is 0-for-16 on the power play in its past six games. … Yandle is expected to play in his 677th consecutive game; he has the longest active streak in the NHL.