The Montreal Canadiens take on the Florida Panthers at Amerant Bank Arena this afternoon. Here are the projected/expected lineups sourced from NHL.com staff writers, independent correspondents, and others.
CANADIENS (14-17-3) at PANTHERS (22-12-2)
1 p.m. ET; SCRIPPS, TSN2, RDS
Canadiens projected lineup
Cole Caufield — Nick Suzuki — Juraj Slafkovsky
Alex Newhook — Kirby Dach — Patrik Laine
Josh Anderson — Christian Dvorak — Brendan Gallagher
Emil Heineman — Jake Evans — Joel Armia
Lane Hutson — Mike Matheson
Kaiden Guhle — Alexandre Carrier
Arber Xhekaj — David Savard
Jakub Dobes
Sam Montembeault
Scratched: Michael Pezzetta, Jayden Struble, Cayden Primeau
Injured: None
Status report
Laine, who left Monday’s 5-4 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets after the first period with an upper-body injury, was a full participant in Friday’s practice in Fort Lauderdale. … Dobes was recalled from AHL Laval on Friday. Coach Martin St. Louis said he would make his NHL debut against the Panthers.
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Panthers projected lineup
Evan Rodrigues — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Jesper Boqvist
A.J. Greer — Tomas Nosek — Mackie Samoskevich
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Dmitry Kulikov — Adam Boqvist
Uvis Balinskis — Nate Schmidt
Spencer Knight
Sergei Bobrovsky
Scratched: None
Injured: Niko Mikkola (upper body), Jonah Gadjovich (upper body)
Status report
Rasmus Asplund, a forward, was returned to AHL Charlotte by the Panthers. He played the past two games in place of Jesper Boqvist (upper-body injury) who will return Saturday. … Mikkola, a defenseman, left Monday’s 4-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second period and did not return. He is day-to-day.
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