After playing one of their better games of the season but still losing in overtime Thursday night, the Panthers will be back at it Saturday when they visit the Tampa Bay Lightning.

This is the sixth of eight meetings between the two Florida squads this season with Tampa Bay taking three of the first five.

On Thursday night, the Panthers threw everything they had against Andrei Vasilevskiy but, at the end of the night, it wasn’t enough.

Vasilevskei made 36 saves in the game as Victor Hedman won it in overtime 3-2.

Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky is the only active goalie to have won the Vezina Trophy twice but it looks like Vasilevskey will join him this year after he won it in 2019.

Expect both goalies to square off against each other at Amalie Arena after Chris Driedger got the start Thursday.

The Panthers can feel good about the way they stood up to the challenge Thursday in Tampa as they looked like the better team throughout the night.

But a couple of mistakes cost them goals and, against a team like the Lightning, that’s all it takes.

The Panthers are learning these things as they go. Playing games of this magnitude could help moving forward as Florida works its way toward the postseason.

Tampa Bay’s first goal came on a power play chance when the Panthers were caught on a line change. Vasilevskiy played a puck deep in the offensive zone, spotted Alex Killorn in the neutral zone and hit him in stride.

Killorn and Anthony Cirelli had a two-man rush on Driedger with MacKenzie Weegar getting there just in time to get his stick in on the cross-ice pass from Killorn — and knock the puck past his goalie.

The Lightning’s second goal came in the third and tied the score when Ross Colton tapped in a pass and put it on Driedger’s pad, celebrating as the puck leaked through.

“Playing meaningful games means every shift is important,” Quenneville said. “We welcome the challenge.”

The Panthers are expected to have their complete team available Saturday with forward Sam Bennett arriving from Calgary after Monday’s trade deadline.

Quenneville said he was thinking about starting Bennett at center, so, the thought here is he will take either the third or fourth line.

Since Quenneville moved Lucas Wallmark up to the second line in his first game with Florida since being reacquired, we figure Bennett will get a chance to play up in the lineup a little at least from the start.

UPDATE: Quenneville said Bennett would play Saturday and he will indeed get a good look, centering the second line with Jonathan Huberdeau and Anthony Duclair.

Tampa Bay comes into Saturday tied with Carolina atop the NHL Central Division as both have 60 points; Florida is a point back in third.

The Panthers and Lightning will conclude the regular season with a two-game series at BB&T Center next month.

Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning

• When: Saturday, 7 p.m.
• Where: Amalie Arena, Tampa
• Tickets: AVAILABLE HERE
• TV: BS-SUN
• Radio: WQAM 560-AM
• Records (standings): Tampa Bay 29-12-2, 60 points (T-1st in Central); Florida 27-12-5, 59 points (3rd).
• All-time series: Florida leads 68-48-17, 10 ties
• Season series: Tampa Bay leads 3-2
• Last season: Tampa Bay won three of four
• Up next: Columbus at Florida, Monday, 7
• Panthers This Week — Tuesday: Florida 3, Dallas 2 (OT); Thursday: Tampa Bay 3, Florida 2 (OT); Saturday: Florida at Tampa Bay, 7

PROJECTED FLORIDA PANTHERS LINES

FLORIDA FORWARDS

19 Mason Marchment — 16 Sasha Barkov — 97 Nikita Gusev

11 Jonathan Huberdeau — 9 Sam Bennett — 91 Anthony Duclair

77 Frank Vatrano — 21 Alex Wennberg — 70 Patric Hornqvist

55 Noel Acciari — 71 Lucas Wallmark — 74 Owen Tippett

FLORIDA DEFENSEMEN

42 Gus Forsling — 52 MacKenzie Weegar

65 Markus Nutivaara — 62 Brandon Montour

3 Keith Yandle — 7 Radko Gudas

FLORIDA GOALIES

72 Sergei Bobrovsky

60 Chris Driedger

Scratches: F Ryan Lomberg, F Eetu Luostarinen, D Matt Kiersted, D Noah Juulsen, D Anton Stralman, G Spencer Knight

Injured: F Carter Verhaeghe (upper body, week-to-week); D Aaron Ekblad (leg, out for regular season)

Taxi squad: D Kevin Connauton, F Cole Schwindt, F Scott Wilson, G Philippe Desrosiers

Sent to AHL Syracuse: F Aleksi Heponiemi, D Brady Keeper, D Lucas Carlsson

Florida power play (31/140 22.1% — 12th in NHL)

Florida penalty kill (105/131 80.2% — 15th in NHL)

PP1: Sasha Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Patric Hornqvist, Nikita Gusev, Keith Yandle

PP2: Alex Wennberg, Anthony Duclair, Frank Vatrano, Mason Marchment, Gus Forsling

PROJECTED TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING LINES

TAMPA BAY FORWARDS

18 Ondrej Palat — 21 Brayden Point — 71 Anthony Cirelli

20 Blake Coleman — 37 Yanni Gourde — 19 Barclay Goodrow

17 Alex Killorn — 9 Tyler Johnson — 7 Mathieu Joseph

14 Pat Maroon — 79 Ross Colton — 67 Mitchell Stevens

TAMPA BAY DEFENSEMEN

77 Victor Hedman — 58 David Savard

27 Ryan McDonagh — 81 Erik Cernak

98 Mikhail Sergachev — 2 Luke Schenn

TAMPA BAY GOALIES

88 Andrei Vasilevskiy

35 Curtis McElhinney

Tampa Bay power play (34/135 25.2% — 5th in NHL)

Tampa Bay penalty kill (115/139 82.7% — 9th in NHL)

PP1: Alex Killorn, Brayden Point, Ondrej Palat, Yanni Gourde, Victor Hedman

PP2: Anthony Cirelli, Ondrej Palat, Pat Maroon, Blake Coleman, Mikhail Sergachev