The Ottawa Senators club the Penguins will face tonight at Mellon Arena is unlikely to be the same one Pittsburgh faced about one month ago at The Igloo.
Sure, they'll have the same uniforms on.
They'll have the same coach.
Most of their players will probably be the same, too.
But, don't expect them to resemble in any other way the club that the Penguins put an 8-2 beating on the last time they visited the steel city.
The fact is that the Ottawa Senators are one of the hottest teams in the National Hockey League right now. They've won 7 straight games and given up only 7 goals in those contests.
And all that with their backup goaltender, Brian Elliott.
Captain and LW Daniel Alfredsson has returned to Ottawa's lineup after suffering a shoulder injury in that last 8-2 defeat, and has looked the usual part for the Senators.
Center Jason Spezza -- also missing the last time Pittsburgh faced-off against the Sens -- is back in the linup and again playing well.
Factor in Alexei Kovalev's 7-game point streak, meaningful contributions from forward Milan Michalek, and some stingy defense by the likes of Chris Phillips and Anton Volchenkov, and it's not hard to see why Ottawa is quickly moving up the Eastern Conference standings.
The Penguins will have their hands full with the Senators tonight for sure, and they are likely to be without at least one or two regulars in the game.
Defenseman Alex Goligoski has been ruled out of the contest with his upper body injury and, while forward Max Talbot is expected to return to the lineup this evening after missing 3 games with a groin problem, it's questionable as to whether forwards Bill Guerin, Eric Godard or Tyler Kennedy will play.
Guerin missed the Pens' last game against the Rangers with an undisclosed injury, and Godard hurt his knee in the first period and did not return.
Godard's injury didn't look good because it was a non-contact injury, but the Penguins have not made any announcement that he's expected to be out a long period of time.
Meanwhile, Kennedy did not practice yesterday and is questionable for tonight.
Chances are that at least one of Kennedy or Guerin will play, though, because while the Penguins again tapped the Wilkes-Barre pipeline once more yesterday, they only brought up one player.
And that one player was forward Chris Conner, who scored 2 goals playing with Sidney Crosby in Monday's win in New York.
If Guerin doesn't go, expect Conner to again be back with Crosby tonight, while Talbot will probably slide into his RW spot on the 2nd line with Evgeni Malkin and Ruslan Fedotenko.
Defenseman Martin Skoula will take Goligoski's spot in the lineup, as he did on Monday.
Here's an interesting piece previewing the game tonight, and talking about the admittedly good job the Senators' "D" has done in matching up against Crosby over the years:
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/Ottawa/2010/01/27/12640011-qmi.html
Recap tomorrow.
Let's Go Pens!
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