"We love playing in front of our fans," Panthers forward Ryan Lomberg said of the team's home-ice advantage. "Our fans do a good job of getting us going. It also goes up to the coaching staff and our leadership group getting us ready, making sure that we're ready to get the job done."
Keeping their impressive streak alive, the Panthers topped the Devils by a score of 4-1 in their last outing on Thursday. Against New Jersey, Carter Verhaeghe, Eetu Luostarinen, Jonathan Huberdeau and Anthony Duclair all scored, while Spencer Knight stopped 45 of 46 shots in net.
Making history, Knight's 45 saves were the most-ever by a Panthers rookie goaltender.
"He wasn't just good, he was great," Panthers interim head coach Andrew Brunette said.
With the win, the Cats improved to 12-2-3 and currently sit in first place in the Atlantic Division.
Scoring a league-best 43 goals on home ice, the Panthers are just the fifth team in NHL history to notch at least four goals in each of their first nine home games to open up a season. Duclair currently leads the team scoring at home with 12 points, with seven of those points being goals.
With a league-leading 11 different players in the lineup having tallied at least nine points this season, Huberdeau is tied with Aleksander Barkov, who is week to week with a lower-body injury, for the overall team-scoring lead on the Panthers with 17 points (six goals, 11 assists).
Catching fire, Huberdeau has found the back of the net in each of his last three games.
Owning a 5-0-0 record with a .956 save percentage at home, Sergei Bobrovsky could slide back into the crease for the Panthers against the Wild. Backstopping the Cats to at least one point in all of his starts this season, the two-time Vezina Trophy winner owns an overall record of 7-0-2.
"That's a coach's dream to have two guys that can play at that level," Brunette said of the club's exceptional tandem of Knight and Bobrovsky between the pipes. "We feel very comfortable with either one of them. They're both off to great starts. I was really happy for Spence last night."
Holding down first place in the Central Division with a record of 11-5-0, Minnesota has won six of its last eight games, including a 7-2 drubbing of the Stars on Thursday. Against Dallas, Kirill Kaprizov, the league's reigning Calder Trophy winner, piled up a team-leading four points (one goal, three assists), while 11 other players had at least one point, and three had multiple points.
Kaprizov leads the team in scoring with 15 points (four goals, 11 assists), while Ryan Hartman and Mats Zuccarello are tied for second with 12 points each. Hartman also leads the team with eight goals, with Joel Eriksson Ek sitting not far behind him in second with six scores of his own.
Likely to get the nod in net against the Panthers, Cam Talbot, who made 36 saves against the Stars, has manned the crease in each of the last four games. In 13 appearances this season, he's posted a 9-4-0 record on top of a 2.85 goals-against average and .906 save percentage.
This will be the first meeting between the Panthers and Wild since the 2019-20 season.
"They've been playing really good hockey," Brunette said of Minnesota. "They're a team that really makes you earn everything anywhere out there on the ice. They're a relentless group."
For Wild forward Brandon Duhaime, tonight's game will also be a homecoming.
A native of Coral Springs, the rookie forward, who first learned how to skate at Incredible Ice (now the Panthers IceDen) and then later played for the Jr. Panthers program, will play his first NHL game at the arena where he used to spend so much time in as a kid cheering on the Cats.
"It's a special night," said Duhaime, who expects to have 50-100 guests in the building.
