Game 41 preview: Florida Panthers @ Ottawa Senators

The Ottawa Senators will look to the end the Florida Panthers 10-game winning streak when the clubs meet in Ottawa tonight. Ottawa came back from two-goals down to win 3-2 in St. Louis on Monday while the Panthers won 5-1 in Buffalo on Tuesday. The division leading Panthers are currently eight points ahead of the Senators.

Milan Michalek and Cody Ceci will return to the lineup meaning that Alex Chiasson and Chris Wideman will be the healthy scratches along with Jared Cowen. Hilariously, but not surprisingly, Mark Borowiecki will keep his place in the lineup. Craig Anderson will start in goal. Here is the expected lineup from Dean Brown.

Ryan - Turris - Stone
Hoffman - Zibanejad - Michalek
McCormick - Pageau - Lazar
Prince - Smith - Neil

Claesson - Karlsson
Wiercioch - Ceci
Methot - Borowiecki

Anderson (starter)
Hammond

Some notes for tonight:

• With Alex Chiasson not playing tonight, the following players will have played every game this year: Erik Karlsson, Kyle Turris, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Chris Neil and Mark Borowiecki. Not getting any crucial man-games won due to injury this season.
• Bobby Ryan busted out of a mini-slump with two goals and an assist against St. Louis.
• The Senators scored a couple of lucky goals to get the game to overtime but boy was that needed. Tonight marks the halfway mark of the season for Ottawa and they can move back into a playoff spot with at least a point tonight.
• Erik Karlsson had five shots on goal in a game just three times in the first 32 games of the season but has done so five times in the last eight. Karlsson has now passed Mike Hoffman for the team lead in shots on goal.
• Hoffman's power play goal was his team-leading fifth on the power play this season.
• Chris Wideman will be a healthy scratch today on his 26th birthday. Mark Borowiecki is never going to come out of the lineup is he?
• Hoffman has slowed down a tad but is still on pace for 41 goals in 78 games this year.
• Hoffman has played almost 44 fewer minutes on the power play compared to Ryan and 35 minutes fewer than Mark Stone.
• There might be some juggling of the lines, but this is getting some what close to an optimum lineup if Mark Borowiecki ever gets scratched. The rest is up to Bryan Murray to acquire better players.
• Unlike the Senators, the Panthers top 5 defencemen average between 21:26 to 19:53 of ice time per game./

Here are some stats for the two teams tonight. All stats are from NHL.com except Corsi and Fenwick are from www.puckon.net. Note that Corsi is now adjusted for score as well as the venue and event type.