The Senators gutted out a win on Tuesday in New Jersey, and it looks like they may have to do so again tonight in Raleigh, as Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman both practiced on Thursday but are doubtful to play against the Hurricanes Friday night. Although Pierre Dorion was hopeful both might play Sunday, Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun tweeted this morning that Hoffman is doubtful to play on the trip, which concludes with back to back games in the state of Florida Sunday and Monday night against the Panthers and Lightning.

After making 29 stops in the 2-1 win against the Devils, Craig Anderson will not start for the Senators, who turn back to Mike Condon as I guess Boucher wants to keep a rotation in order to maintain each goalie's sharpness and freshness. It would be tough to argue against it given what Condon has done for the team this season, but you might have thought that going with the hot hand in Anderson given the fact that they have been off for two days. I do like that they are not simply dismissing Condon now that Anderson is back though.

These two teams squared off twice in November, with remarkably similar results. In both games, Carolina opened the scoring, both times Dion Phaneuf tied it up and Kyle Turris scored the winner on both occasions, once in overtime and once in the third period.

Games between Carolina and Ottawa have been very close over the past two seasons, with three of the five games requiring extra time and the lone match decided by more than one goal was a 4-2 Ottawa win last season with the 4th Ottawa goal coming on a Stone empty netter with 1 second left on the clock.

Cam Ward will make his 600th career start for the Hurricanes, and has a 15-8-3 career record against the Senators. [EDIT: It will be Eddie Lack, not Cam Ward (who apparently had the starter's net in the morning skate) that will get the start.] Condon has only faced Carolina once, a 3-2 loss last season while he was with the Canadiens.
With the lineup the Senators are anticipated to be icing tonight, they will have to play a game very similar to the one they played against the Devils - limit the scoring chances against and protect their goaltending, as well as get some opportunistic scoring. It was Erik Karlsson who had one of his more dominant games on Tuesday, even if he did record just one point. He took the game over and set the pace, and will be expected to do that again with the variety of line combinations that Guy Boucher is going to have to send over the boards in the absence of so many of his top forwards.

They also can't look past the Hurricanes to Sunday night's pivotal matchup against the surging Panthers, or this one could get away from them quickly. They don't have a super explosive offense to begin with, but now without Hoffman, Stone and Bobby Ryan, it is that much less powerful and can't overcome a lot of mistakes or missed opportunities. Ottawa got a timely goal from its power play on Tuesday, and scored for the fourth game in a row on the man advantage, but Carolina's penalty kill is the one segment of the team that is above average, and it is a league-high 86.3%.

Fortunately, the Hurricanes are already offensively challenged and sit dead last in the Eastern Conference, and are about one loss away from being all but eliminated in the playoff race. Their odds are already razor thin, but the only thing is that they have 4 games in hand on almost everyone else in the conference, and if they were to win all of those in-hand games they would be right back in the mix. However, they also realize how slim their hopes are and began the trade deadline early by dealing veteran blueliner Ron Hainsey to the Penguins yesterday.

The downside of that is that Ottawa has to be careful because Carolina is a young team with skilled players who really have nothing to lose. They can let loose and take chances offensively , and also guys who are perhaps auditioning for jobs for next season especially on a blue line loaded with prospects in the system.

The Senators can take over first place in the Atlantic Division with a win, and would still hold 2 games in hand on the Habs who currently occupy that spot but have won only 2 of their last 10 games and are 1-2 under new coach Claude Julien.

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