BUFFALO – The captain is back.

After missing eight games with a lower-body injury, Aleksander Barkov will return to the lineup when the Florida Panthers visit the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Monday.

Holding down the fort without Barkov, the Panthers sit atop the Atlantic Division at 6-3-1.

“It’s obviously a huge loss when Barky’s not in our lineup,” forward Sam Bennett said of the two-time Selke Trophy winner. “He does everything. He makes the game a lot easier for a lot of guys, but guys stepped up that had to. We’ve showed that we don’t want to be without him, but we did a good job of trying to fill that huge hole. It was a great job by all the guys.”

Channeling the “Comeback Cats,” the Panthers enter tonight’s matchup on the heels of a 6-3 win on Long Island on Saturday. After falling behind 3-0 in the first period, the Panthers scored the next six goals, including two from Matthew Tkachuk and the first of Mackie Samoskevich’s NHL career.

Shutting the door, Spencer Knight stopped all 19 shots he faced in the second and third periods.

Overall, the Panthers have won four straight games on the road.

“It was a great win, a gutsy win after not a very good start,” said Bennett, who also lit the lamp on Long Island. “I think just looking to get a better start tonight and then get back to our game.”

Finding the back of the net in each of the last four games, Bennett leads the Panthers with seven goals and ranks third in points (10). Making a dent on the scoresheet in eight of 10 games thus far, Sam Reinhart leads the team in points (14) and sits second in goals (6).

Fresh off becoming the 14^th goaltender in NHL history hit the 400-win mark, Sergei Bobrovsky will man the crease in Buffalo after backing up Knight on Long Island.

In his career against the Sabres, Bobrovsky boasts a 15-7-2 record.

After losing five of their first six games, the Sabres currently sit third in the Atlantic Division after winning three straight games to improve to 4-4-1 in the standings. In their most-recent outing, they held off a late push to secure a 5-3 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.

Leading the Sabres in both goals (7) and points (11), Tage Thompson scored a pair of goals against Detroit, while Jason Zucker, Bowen Byram and Jack Quinn also touched twine. In net, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who’s started every game of the win streak, made 22 saves.

Bouncing back after posting just 56 points last season, Thompson is starting to once again look like the budding star that racked up 94 points (47 goals, 47 assists) for the Sabres in 2022-23.

“The standard thing you’d say defensively against any of the elite players is time and space,” head coach Paul Maurice said of trying to slow down Buffalo’s 6-foot-6 star forward. “But it’s far more difficult to put the pressure on the puck when you can’t reach it. He can keep it across his body, take it across his body, and he moves well with it. He’s a lot to handle.”

The last road loss for the Panthers, the Sabres won, 5-2, in their previous meeting on Oct. 12.

Looking back that that game, Maurice believes a lot of lessons were learned.

“When you lose a game is what you don’t want is to have 100 problems in that game,” he said. “If you do, you don’t even look at the video again. You just walk away from it, move on to the next [games] and try to re-establish yourself. We gave up four breakaways in that game. In terms of our identity, there were things we just did not do in that game, and it was obvious. We had 13 clips, and they were all identical. It was all the same problem. We’ve got that part righted a little bit and were able to win some games.”

THEY SAID IT

“We’ve done a pretty good job of that over the last couple years, not panicking when things aren’t going our way or we’re not playing great. We just bear down a little bit harder.” – Sam Bennett

“We’re getting on a plane after this game and going to Finland. There’s an awful lot of excitement about that. But handling your day, living your day and not getting too far ahead of yourself and then finding the emotional energy to play a more consistent game of hockey is our challenge.” – Paul Maurice

“It’s pretty weird, to be honest. Right now, we’re kind of in the road bubble. We just play and travel. I don’t think we really understand that we’re going to fly nine hours to Finland after this game.” – Anton Lundell

FIVE CATS STATS

– Florida’s 89.3% penalty kill percentage ranks tied for third in the NHL.

– Anton Lundell has recorded four multi-point games this season.

– The Panthers own a 5-0-0 record when Sam Reinhart scores a goal.

– Florida is averaging 3.33 goals per game on the road.

– The Panthers rank sixth in the NHL with a 53.64 CF% at 5-on-5.

PROJECTED LINEUP (SUBJECT TO CHANGE)

Forwards

Evan Rodrigues – Aleksander Barkov – Sam Reinhart

Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Jesper Boqvist

A.J. Greer – Patrick Giles – Mackie Samoskevich

Defensemen

Gustav Forsling – Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov

Nate Schmidt – Uvis Balinskis

Goaltenders

Sergei Bobrovsky

Spencer Knight

RECENT TRANSACTIONS:

– Oct. 25: Singed F Hunter St. Martin to an entry-level contract

– Oct. 11: F Patrick Giles recalled to Florida

HOW TO WATCH/LISTEN

When: Monday, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. ET

Where: KeyBank Center – Buffalo, NY

TV & Streaming: Panthers+, WSFL-TV, WHDT, WFTX, WPTV, ESPN+ (out of market)

Radio: 790 WAXY (Dade/Broward); 1230 WBZT-AM & 92.1 WZZR-FM (Palm Beach); 100.3 WCTH (Florida Keys); 101.7 WCZR (Treasure Coast); Panthers App; SiriusXM App & Streaming 931

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