Panthers Gameday: Schmid vs. Tarasov in Net, Barkov and Marchand Still Out, and Detroit's Penalty Kill Is the Opening

The Florida Panthers' three-game homestand continues tonight in Sunrise, and the gameday sheet tells the season's strangest story plainly: Florida (8-4-2, 18 points) hosts Detroit (6-5-3, 15 points) at 7 p.m. Eastern at Amerant Bank Arena, on Scripps locally, still without Aleksander Barkov (lower body) and Brad Marchand (leg) — and still winning, six of its last eight, on depth scoring led by Matthew Tkachuk's 20 points (4 goals, 16 assists) and Carter Verhaeghe's team-high 8 goals. Jonah Gadjovich and Jacob Markstrom, both upper body, are also out for Florida.

The projected goaltending matchup is the file's sharpest contrast. Florida's Akira Schmid (5-2-1, .889 save percentage, 2.86 goals against) is the workhorse of necessity; Detroit's Daniil Tarasov (1-0-2) has been nearly untouchable in his small sample — a .940 save percentage, a 1.40 goals-against average and a shutout. Detroit arrives off a 5-4 loss to St. Louis on Saturday, with Alex DeBrincat (6 goals, 9 assists) and Lucas Raymond (14 points) carrying its offense, and with a 5-2-3 record over its last ten that says the Red Wings rarely get run out of a building.

The special-teams line is where this game tilts on paper. Detroit has allowed 14 power-play goals in 45 opportunities, the soft underbelly of its season, and Florida has scored 16 times with the extra skater — the exact strength-against-weakness matchup the Panthers' power play, run through Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart (12 points), is built to exploit. It is the first of four meetings this season; the last one, on April 15, ended 8-1 for Florida, and the teams meet again in Sunrise on November 12. A fourth straight Panthers win tonight keeps the homestand perfect heading into the rest of the week.