Panthers vs Capitals: who's in, who's out, and who gets the crease

Paul Maurice is going back to Bobrovsky, and the workhorse résumé is still loud. The 37-year-old carries a $10 million cap hit and sits at 16-8-1 with a 2.78 GAA and .889 save percentage.

Up front, the top look has Eetu Luostarinen with Anton Lundell and Sam Reinhart.

Carter Verhaeghe stays stapled to Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand, which is Florida's straight-line forecheck engine.

Mackie Samoskevich is expected to play with Evan Rodrigues and A.J. Greer.

The fourth look has Jesper Boqvist with Luke Kunin and Jack Studnicka.

I'll be honest, fans can feel the thin margin without Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, so every shift has to be sharper.

The blue line is projected with Gustav Forsling beside Aaron Ekblad, then Niko Mikkola with Seth Jones, and Uvis Balinskis with Jeff Petry. Noah Gregor and Donovan Sebrango look like the healthy extras tonight.

The big key is discipline after Saturday's chaos, because Florida cannot live on the penalty kill again. The Tampa game had 45 penalties and the building felt like a boiling kettle, so expect a calmer, tighter neutral-zone night against Washington.

The injury timeline talk is what really grabbed attention on Sunday, especially the reminder that recovery windows exist for a reason. Jonah Gadjovich is already pegged at roughly three months, and «after the Olympics» basically points past February 22, while Dmitry Kulikov's five-month outlook lines up around mid-March.

If Bobrovsky sees pucks early and Lundell's line wins the middle, the next milestone is simple, turn a heated week into two points Monday night.