Panthers wrap up quick road trip in Philly against surging Flyers

The Florida Panthers wrap up their brief road trip through Pennsylvania looking to head home on a winning note.

Florida will try to extend their point streak to five straight games when they meet the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night from Wells Fargo Center.

It appears the Cats are out of the funk that they managed through much of November, and now they'll face a Flyers team playing some of its best hockey of the season.

Philly began the season with just a single win over their first seven games, but have since turned things around to the tune of an 8-2-2 stretch since early November.

They have been playing some tight games of late, needing more than 60 minutes in eight of their past 12 outings and earning a 6-2 record in those eight games. Philadelphia has also gone to overtime in four of their past five games, logging a 3-1-1 record.

Now the Flyers find themselves holding the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference and looking to cement themselves as one of the top three teams in the competitive Metropolitan Division.

Over the past few weeks, Philadelphia Head Coach John Tortorella has been alternating between his two goals on a game-by-game basis, and both Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov have responded well.

Should the trend continue, Florida would then see Fedotov between the pipes on Thursday.

Over his past six starts, Fedotov has earned at least a point in five of them, logging a 4-1-1 record.

That’s particularly encouraging because he had a rough start to the season, to put it mildly, dropping each of his first three outings while allowing 14 goals on just 78 shots.

Florida's options in goal are Spencer Knight and Chris Driedger, who was recalled earlier this week from the AHL's Charlotte Checkers.

That's because Florida's starting goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky, stayed back home in South Florida with his wife Olga for the birth of their second child.

Knight started on Tuesday in Pittsburgh and struggled, allowing five goals on just 16 shots in the 5-4 overtime loss.

Here are the Panthers projected lines and for Thursday's tangle in Philly:

Evan Rodrigues – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart

Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist

A.J. Greer – Tomas Nosek – Jonah Gadjovich

Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola – Nate Schmidt

Dmitry Kulikov – Adam Boqvist

Scratches: Uvis Balinskis

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