FLORIDA PANTHERS VS TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING 12/23/2019 LIVE 7:00 PM ET

Florida coach Joel Quenneville put the Panthers' lines in a blender recently, and the results have been a potent concoction.

Quenneville and the Panthers close out the portion of the season before the Christmas break -- a strong start for Florida -- on Monday with a visit to downtown Tampa for a 7 p.m. ET puck drop against the Lightning.

Tampa Bay will see a different lineup of forwards than the one it saw nearly two weeks ago on the road in South Florida.

After a three-game home losing skid, which started with a 2-1 loss to their in-state rivals, the Panthers made a strategic move, primarily splitting up the top line of Jonathan Huberdeau, Aleksander Barkov and Evgenii Dadonov and spreading their talent over the top three lines.

In the three games since that rearrangement, the second line of Huberdeau, Vincent Trocheck and Noel Acciari has run roughshod over opposing goalies.

Acciari notched the first hat trick of his five-year career in a 6-1 win against Ottawa, then he duplicated the feat and added an assist in a 7-4 win over Dallas.

The 28-year-old Rhode Island native added to that with an insurance marker -- his career-best 12th goal -- in Florida's 4-2 road win against Carolina on Saturday night as the Hurricanes were attempting to rally.

In the three games since moving to the second line, Acciari has seven goals and an assist. He also became just the second Florida player to produce consecutive hat tricks, joining Pavel Bure, who turned the trick in the 2000-01 season.

"Playing with (Huberdeau and Trocheck) is a lot of fun," Acciari said. "You just have to get open and they find you. I just put pucks on net and good things happen."

Huberdeau has 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in the span, and Trocheck as the pivot has been playing with an extra step that has been missing since his return last January after a two-month absence for a broken ankle.

The Panthers have outscored the opposition 17-7 in the three wins with the new look and almost surely will have Sergei Bobrovsky in goal in Tampa.

Backup Chris Driedger was outstanding in Raleigh, stopping 42 shots as Florida won at Carolina for the first time since 2015.

The Lightning return from the nation's capital after dropping a 3-1 game to the Washington Capitals on Saturday night.

The loss -- their third in four games (1-2-1) -- was the second to the Capitals in a week, and the Lightning also dropped a 4-3 overtime decision at home to Dallas after dominating the Stars and outshooting them 48-20.

Though winger Nikita Kucherov did score his 200th career goal, the Lightning and their top-ranked NHL power-play units went 0-for-7, including a 5-on-3 in the third period for 1:26 with the score tied.

"I can't sit here and say we played very well. I can't say that about our team for the last month and a half," said Lightning coach Jon Cooper after his team was swept 3-0 in the season series against the Caps.

"They played last night, we didn't. We had a chance to win or at least get a point of the game, and we didn't."