Carolina Hurricanes vs Ottawa Senators
Thursday, February 7, 2013 - 7:30 pm EST
ScotiaBank Place - Ottawa, ON
TV - Fox Sports Carolinas HD Radio - 99.9 The Fan
SB Nation Senators Blog: Silver Seven Sens (twitter @silversevensens)
Hurricanes Record: 4-4-0, 8 pts.
Senators Record: 6-3-1, 13 pts.
Tonight's game is the second of three meetings this season between these clubs. The Hurricanes won the first just last week in Raleigh by a score of 1-0 when Dan Ellis earned a shutout. The Canes are coming off a 4-1 win on Monday night in Toronto. The Sens defeated Buffalo, 4-3 on Tuesday night.
Hurricanes Notes:
Carolina is in the middle of a six game road trip, (currently 1-1), and will next travel to Philadelphia for a matinee on Saturday before they play the Islanders on Monday night and the Devils on Tuesday night.
Eric Staal has a six game scoring streak going and also has goals in four straight games. Jeff Skinner, Jordan Staal, Jiri Tlusty, and Patrick Dwyer each have two game scoring streaks on the line.
E. Staal has 13 points in the last 10 games against the Senators and Alexander Semin has 25 points in 21 career games against this team.
The Hurricanes are averaging 38.2 shots per game, good for first in the NHL. So far they are 6-40 on the powerplay, (15%), 22nd in the league and have allowed 10 goals on 38 attempts, 24th in the league.
The team has announced that they will not have a morning skate, so don't expect any lineup updates at noon. Muller started the following lines on Monday night in Toronto, (with some back and forth changes in the last two lines):
Jiri Tlusty - Eric Staal - Alex Semin
Patrick Dwyer - Jordan Staal - Jeff Skinner
Chad LaRose - Jussi Jokinen - Drayson Bowman
Kevin Westgarth - Tim Brent - Tim Wallace
Andreas Nodl was scratched but could trade places with Westgarth.
Joni Pitkanen - Jamie McBain
Tim Gleason - Justin Faulk
Bobby Sanguinetti - Jay Harrison
Joe Corvo was scratched previously but might see action against his former team.
After a strong showing Monday night, Cam Ward will most likely be in net.
(Update on Twitter that Corvo and Nodl will be scratches again tonight. Ward to start - 1:09 pm)
Senators Notes:
The Sens have been rock solid at home and have earned 9 points out of a possible 10 at ScotiaBank Place this season. Goalie Craig Anderson has been one of the hottest tenders in the league. Last week they started the following lines. If we have any updates, they will be posted in the comments during the day.
Projected lines:
Milan Michalek -
Kyle Turris - Daniel Alfredsson
Guillaume Latendresse -
Peter Regin - Jakob Silfverberg
Colin Greening - Zack Smith - Chris Neil
Jim O'Brien - Mika Zibanejad - Erik Condra
Marc Méthot - Erik Karlsson
Chris Phillips - Sergei Gonchar
Patrick Wiercioch - Andre Benoit
Craig Anderson
Ben Bishop
Updated lines from the morning skate, (glove tap to Adnan) (11:15 am)
Sens lines at practice today
Zibanejad – Turris – Alfredsson
Michalek – Smith – Silfverberg
Greening – Regin – Neil
O’Brien – Da Costa – Condra
Méthot – Karlsson
Lundin – Gonchar
Phillips – Benoît
Wiercioch – Borowiecki (likely healthy scratches)