Game 11 preview: Detroit Red Wings @ Ottawa Senators

The struggling Ottawa Senators will start a stretch of four games at home this week when they host the Detroit Red Wings tonight. After somehow winning four of their first five games, the Senators have lost four out of the last five. It is early in the season, but the Senators don't want to start falling too far off the playoff pace, thus it is crucial they have a successful run of games at home here.

There will be no changes to the team that lost in Boston except Craig Anderson will start. Jimmy Howard will start for Detroit.

Here are the lines and pairings for Ottawa from Sylvain St-Laurent.

Ottawa

MacArthur - Turris - Ryan
Michalek - Zibanejad - Chiasson
Smith - Legwand - Neil
Hoffman - Lazar - Stone

Phillips - Karlsson
Cowen - Ceci
Wiercioch - Gryba

Anderson (starter)
Lehner

And here are the Red Wings lines and pairings from Ansar Khan.

Detroit

Zetterberg - Datsyuk - Abdelkader
Tatar - Sheahan - Nyquist
Franzen - Helm - Jurco
Miller - Glendening - Andersson

Kronwall - Ericsson
DeKeyser - Smith
Lashoff - Kindl

Howard (starter)
Gustavsson

Some notes for tonight:

• Tonight has to be better than Saturday right?
• Erik Karlsson had a subpar game against Chicago and followed it up with an even worse game against Boston. Erik is the best defenceman on the team in every aspect but with the state of the rest of the defence, when he has a horrible game, Saturday night is what you get.
• Erik is going to be better tonight right? He is also struggling offensively with just two shots in the last two games after getting 38 in the seven games before that.
• The Red Wings have had a superb start and are among the league leaders in Corsi close though less so in Fenwick close. Their 26.6 shots allowed per game is 4th in the NHL.
• Pavel Datsyuk has 10 points in five games this season.
• Johan Franzen has an incredible 12 goals in 9 games against Ottawa. He doesn't have any assists though.
• Mika Zibanejad had nine shots and zero points in the first eight games but has two goals and eight shots in the last two.
• Alex Chiasson has a five game points streak with two goals and three assists.
• Tonight will be Curtis Lazar's ninth NHL game. If he plays again on Thursday, the Senators will use up the first year of his contract.