The Senators are coming into this one off of their 3-2 shootout win on Tuesday night in Philadelphia, (remember, I said yesterday that the Nashville game never happened)

But seriously, they Senators have lost to Nashville twice in the last week and a half and they were probably the team's two worst efforts of the season. Thankfully they will not see the Predators again this season, barring a very unlikely Stanley Cup Finals matchup.

Ottawa starts a string of three straight important divisional games tonight with their first matchup of the season against the Florida Panthers. The Panthers won the regular season division last year by six points, but a couple of key injuries to Jonathan Huberdeau and Nick Bjugstad (neither of whom have played a game this season) combined with Jaromir Jagr possibly finally realizing he is 65 years old have them muddling along with a 8-8-1 record.

Like the Predators on Thursday, the Panthers come in limping from a solid 6-1 beatdown at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs, a game where James Reimer struggled against his former team. It will be Roberto Luongo in the pipes tonight, well rested after getting Thursday night off.

If you look at the Panthers' scoring leaders you see some unfamiliar names, or names you wouldn't expect to see. Johnathan Marchessault leads them in goals (8) and points (14) while Colton Scevior and Denis Malgin are third and fourth in scoring. Meanwhile, Sasha Barkov (8 points), Rielly Smith (6), Jagr (6) and Aaron Ekblad (4) are all putting up sub-standard numbers so far.

Kind of like the Senators, who need more production from anywhere at all. Other than Erik Karlsson and maybe Kyle Turris, not one of their top players is producing at a level that was expected while Ryan Dzingel is the one guy who has surprised in a good way with his numbers.

The Senators have been getting it done with goaltending (and the 5-spot given up to the Predators on Thursday had better be an exception rather than a rule or there will be trouble).

The Senators lineup will be a game time decision as injuries have struck this week. With the status of Bobby Ryan, Mike Hoffman and Chris Neil uncertain, the Senators made roster moves to send down Freddie Claesson to make room and this morning have recalled Curtis Lazar from Binghamton. Lazar hasn't played an NHL game this season and has put up less than stellar numbers in his B-Sens stint, although recovering from Mono has probably slowed his start to the season. He did score in Friday night's 6-2 Senators' win in Albany, making his total three goals and one assist in 13 games, two of the goals coming on the power play.

So while the forward combinations could have any number of permutations and combinations, it will be Craig Anderson between the pipes a day after he and his wife confirmed that it is throat cancer Nicholle is fighting and it will require chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Since the news of the cancer was made public on Oct 29th, Anderson is 4-2-1 with a sub 2.00 GAA and has allowed more than 2 goals just once, in Nashville. The problem is that he has had little offensive support and I am not sure how much he can expect tonight with a patchwork forward unit in front of him.

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