PREVIEW: Red Wings' four-game road trip shifts to Florida, where they first battle Panthers on Tuesday

SUNRISE, FLA. -- Moving onto the Sunshine State segment of their four-game road trip, the Detroit Red Wings will face the two-time defending Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday night.

“Every game is important and means something,” Justin Faulk said. “Not to say that the others don’t throughout the year, but these [late-season] ones are of huge importance. Everyone is fighting. All the little details matter. You want to be feeling good going into the playoffs, too. You got to get there first, but you want your game to be sharp and it’s all the little things that kind of get you that momentum and it slowly builds.”

Puck drop is set for 7 p.m., with broadcast coverage on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit and the Red Wings Radio Network (97.1 The Ticket in Detroit). This is the third of four meetings between the Atlantic Division rivals this season, including the second in the last five days after the Red Wings (36-21-7; 79 points) fell in a 3-1 decision to the Panthers (31-29-3; 65 points) at Little Caesars Arena on Friday. 

“It’s a tough matchup,” Faulk said. “It’s always a fun one to play against a team like this, and that’s proven. Just because they’re not having a great year in the standings doesn’t mean that they forgot how to play hockey. Those guys aren’t going to give us an easy night, that’s for sure.”

Detroit’s longest road trek this month started in shutout fashion on Sunday, a 3-0 win over the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center in which Faulk made his Red Wings debut and Moritz Seider recorded three points (one goal, two assists) while James van Riemsdyk (one goal, one assist) and Patrick Kane (two assists) each had two.

“I thought we played decent games against Vegas and Florida,” said Dominik Shine, who scored his first career NHL goal on Sunday. “We didn’t get the wins, so we just kept it really simple. I think we were really good on the forecheck, which made it easy for our D to pinch down and create some offense. I thought we did a really good job.”

Goalies John Gibson and Cam Talbot shared the workload between the pipes versus the Devils, combining to turn aside 31 shots. Talbot played the third period in relief of Gibson, who sustained an undisclosed injury late in the second on a collision in the crease.

Among his injury updates following Tuesday’s morning skate at Baptist Health IcePlex, Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan confirmed Gibson will start against the Panthers while captain Dylan Larkin (lower body) is going to be sidelined for a second straight game.

“Dylan is still on the trip with us,” McLellan said. “He’s getting treatments daily. Obviously, he isn’t going to play here tonight. Our next one is in Tampa in a couple days, so we’ll see where he is at that point. Maybe we’ll have a better update then too.”

McLellan also shared that David Perron (lower body), who shed his non-contact jersey on Tuesday morning, is “creeping closer” to making his season debut with Detroit.

“He’s only really skated with us one time,” McLellan said. “We knew where he was, but we needed to have our staff evaluate him, and that was done real quickly. So, we kept him in a non-contact jersey [last Saturday]. He’s getting more involved physically and improving every day, so the sooner we get him in the better.”

Florida hasn’t played since last Friday and has gone 3-7-0 in its last 10 games. In terms of their lineup, the Panthers will be without both Sam Reinhart (59 points on 28 goals and 31 assists) and Brad Marchand (54 points on 27 goals and 27 assists). Netminder Daniil Tarasov is set to start, bringing a 8-10-2 record with a 2.81 goals-against average and .902 save percentage through 21 games into Tuesday’s tilt.

“You can’t take this team lightly ever,” Faulk said. “They’re aggressive. They play hard. Five-on-five, they’re all over you. They smother you, same with their penalty kill. And obviously, we know their skill up front is pretty elite. It’s a tough group.”