Panthers Could Be Without Barkov vs. Red Hot Predators

 The Florida Panthers could be without captain Sasha Barkov when they play against the red hot Nashville Predators.

Florida’s captain is a “game-time decision” as the Panthers get ready to take on arguably the hottest team in the NHL.

Barkov joined the team for morning skate after missing the last couple of practices with a lower-body injury.

“He’s right there,” coach Paul Maurice said. “The medical guys are going to make a decision on what they think another day will do. And if we think it’s going to give him a five percent boost, that’s a big number for us and we’re going to think about holding him one more.

“It’s nothing sinister. He’s dealt with is, he’s played with it and we’ve had this real upturn and it’s getting way better really fast and we want to keep that going.”

Matthew Tkachuk, who was labeled as questionable on Wednesday, is good to go for the Panthers.

That is good news for Florida considering a team on a 15-game point streak is on the other side of the ice tonight.

Nashville is 15-4-3 since the Panthers out-grinded them in a 4-1 win featuring three third-period goals.

They learned a thing or two from that game.

“I think you look back and I remember the Florida game we played them at home, and the first period was a little bit of an eye-opener for our group,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said. “I thought we had to play at that intensity that they’re bringing and they bring it every night.

”I think they saw it firsthand without me having to say anything and I thought, the results didn’t show up right away, but I thought we dug in and found that level that you need to play against these great teams in the league. So for us, that was a big, big push and then I think over the last 15-16 games, we’ve got the secondary scoring that was probably missing early in the year.”

Uvis Balinskis, who the Panthers called up from AHL Charlotte this morning, will draw into the lineup with Dmitry Kulikov serving a two-game suspension.

He had a goal and two points in 18 games while helping fill in for an injured Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour to start the season.

”I like to describe him as a gamer,” Maurice said of the 27-year-old defenseman in his first season of North American hockey. “When you put a new player in the lineup, they’ll sometimes play that survival game where they try not to make a mistake. At the same time, there has to be a limit to that.

“You can’t be playing forward if we’re playing you to play defense. And I thought he did a really good job trying to make plays where they are without cheating the game.”

The starting goalies: Sergei Bobrovsky vs. Kevin Lankinen. 

Lankinen beat the Panthers last March.