Overview
The Florida Panthers visit the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa tonight where they on division rivals the Ottawa Senators. The Senators have played the Panthers well over the years winning 39 of the last 56 meetings including 8 of the last 10 played in Ottawa.
Head to Head Trends
Panthers are 17-39 in the last 56 meetings.
Panthers are 2-8 in the last 10 meetings in Ottawa.
Ottawa Senators (-105)
The Ottawa Senators are 5th in the Atlantic Division with 44 points 8 points back of the 1st place Florida Panthers. The Senators were playing some decent hockey earlier in the season but they have started to struggle of late mostly due to their offense that has all but disappeared.
Over the last 12 games the Senators are just 4-8 and their defense hasn’t been all that bad apart from that one game that saw them give up 7 goals to the Bruins. It’s their offense that has been the main problem scoring under 2 goals in 6 of those games. To be fair the Sen’s were on the road for a lot of those games and they were playing some really good teams so I’ll give them a bit of a break but if they don’t pick things up soon I think they might be a team to avoid betting for a while.
Ottawa Senators Trends
Senators are 5-1 in their last 6 home games.
Senators are 23-10 in their last 33 when their opponent allows 2 goals or less in their previous game.
Florida Panthers (-105)
The Florida Panthers are 1st in the Atlantic Division with 52 points 3 points up on the 2nd place Montreal Canadians. Over the first couple months of the season the Panthers really weren’t doing much at all but they have come out of no where and are all of a sudden one of the best teams in the league.
The Panthers have won their last 10 games in a row and a couple weeks before that they have a nice little 5 game win streak as well. Most of this recent success is due to goaltender Roberto Luongo and even back up goalie Al Montoya both have been red hot of late. One thing I do see is that the Panthers have been a little lucky over the past month or so winning their last 5 overtime/shootout games so don’t be surprised if the bounces stop going their way fairly soon and they go into a cold stretch.
Florida Panthers Trends
Panthers are 10-0 in their last 10 overall.
Panthers are 91-191-9 in their last 291 road games vs. a team with a winning home record.
Conclusion
I’m going with the Ottawa Senators to put an end to the Panthers win streak tonight. I think both these teams will flip flop over the next couple weeks with the Sen’s getting hot and the Panthers really cooling off and coming back down to earth.
Free Pick: Ottawa Senators -105
