The Florida Panthers take on the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 1 of their first-round playoff matchup at Amalie Arena tonight. Here are the projected/expected lineups sourced from NHL.com staff writers, independent correspondents, and others.
PANTHERS (A3) at LIGHTNING (A2)
Eastern Conference First Round, Game 1
8:30 p.m. ET; FDSNSUN, SCRIPPS, ESPN, TVAS2, SN360
Panthers projected lineup
Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand
Evan Rodrigues — Nico Sturm — Jesper Boqvist
Gustav Forsling — Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis — Nate Schmidt
Sergei Bobrovsky
Vitek Vanecek
Scratched: Tomas Nosek, A.J. Greer, Jonah Gadjovich, Jaycob Megna
Injured: None
Suspended: Aaron Ekblad
Status report:
Ekblad, a defenseman who was suspended 20 games on March 10 for violating the terms of the NHL/NHLPA Performance Enhancing Substances Program, will be eligible to return to the Panthers following Game 2 on Thursday.
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Lightning projected lineup
Jake Guentzel — Brayden Point — Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel — Anthony Cirelli — Nick Paul
Conor Geekie — Yanni Gourde — Gage Goncalves
Zemgus Girgensons — Luke Glendening
Victor Hedman — JJ Moser
Ryan McDonagh — Erik Cernak
Emil Lilleberg — Nick Perbix
Darren Raddysh
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Jonas Johansson
Scratched: Cam Atkinson, Mitchell Chaffee
Injured: Oliver Bjorkstrand (lower body)
Status report
Bjorkstrand, a forward, is out for the series.
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