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At the Rink blog

At the Rink: Panthers at Senators

Sunday, 03.29.2015 / 2:41 PM

By Chris Stevenson - NHL.com Correspondent / 2014-2015 At the Rink blog

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2014-2015 At the Rink blog
At the Rink: Panthers at Senators

OTTAWA -- The Florida Panthers play the first of two critical games against their main rivals in the Eastern Conference playoff race when they face the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre on Sunday (5 p.m. ET; FS-F, RDS, TSN5).

The Panthers enter the game against the Senators three points behind the Senators and four points behind the Boston Bruins in the battle for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

The Panthers play the Bruins, who defeated the New York Rangers on Saturday to take over the second wild card, on Tuesday.

The Senators have played one game fewer than the Bruins and the Panthers.

The Senators and the Panthers each lost in overtime Saturday. The Senators gave up a 3-1 third-period lead against the Toronto Maple Leafs and lost 4-3; the Panthers gave up a power-play goal to the Montreal Canadiens in overtime in their 3-2 loss.

"It's our season," Panthers defenseman Brian Campbell said following the overtime loss in Montreal. "Obviously [Saturday] doesn't help by not getting two points. We realize that. But we've got Ottawa, Boston coming up. They're must-win games. We need to take it as a playoff series and we have to win the next two. It's do or die for us."

Dan Ellis will start in goal for the Panthers. Craig Anderson will start in goal for the Senators and he will be backed up by Andrew Hammond.

The Senators sent 20-year-old Chris Driedger, who was called up on an emergency basis when Anderson was injured, to the Binghamton Senators of the American Hockey on Sunday.

Hammond, who was injured against the San Jose Sharks on Monday, did not look comfortable while giving up five goals on 22 shots against the New York Rangers on Thursday. He did not dress against the Maple Leafs.

Anderson started against the Maple Leafs, his first start since March 10 in what turned out to be an aborted attempt to comeback from a hand injury he sustained Jan. 21.

Anderson missed 14 games after the injury, came back to play in a win against the Calgary Flames on March 8 and a loss to the Boston Bruins on March 10, and then missed another nine games.

Anderson made 27 saves against the Maple Leafs, but gave up four goals on 10 shots in the third period and overtime.

The Senators led 3-1 with 10:30 left in the third period against the Maple Leafs. Toronto’s Tyler Bozak scored his second and third goals of the game to tie it and defenseman Eric Brewer scored at 3:17 of overtime to win it for the Leafs.

Cameron said the only way his young team is going to learn to play in pressure situations is by playing in them. They can’t learn it in practice.

“Not unless somebody comes up with an invention for me, no,” Cameron said. “You can’t practice pressure. You have to live it. The more times you experience it the more comfortable you become with it, but you have to get that in games.

“The team that gets in (the playoffs), in my opinion, is the team that can trust their structure and stay with it for whatever amount of games you have left because everybody is going to be fatigued. Everybody has about the same schedule. It’s going to be who can trust their structure and stick to it.”

Here are the projected lineups:

PANTHERS

Jonathan HuberdeauAleksander BarkovJaromir Jagr

Brandon PirriVincent TrocheckJimmy Hayes

Jussi JokinenDave BollandBrad Boyes

Scottie UpshallDerek MacKenzieTomas Kopecky

Brian CampbellAaron Ekblad

Willie MitchellErik Gudbranson

Dmitry KulikovAlex Petrovic

Dan Ellis

Roberto Luongo

Scratched: Steven Kampfer, Shawn Thornton.

Injured: Al Montoya (lower body), Nick Bjugstad (back surgery),

SENATORS

Clarke MacArthurKyle TurrisMark Stone

Mike HoffmanMika Zibanejad - Bobby Ryan

Erik CondraJean-Gabriel PageauCurtis Lazar

Colin GreeningDavid LegwandAlex Chiasson

Marc Methot - Erik Karlsson

Jared Cowen - Cody Ceci

Mark BorowieckiEric Gryba

Craig Anderson

Andrew Hammond

Scratched: Zack Smith, Patrick Wiercioch.

Injured: Robin Lehner (concussion), Chris Phillips (back), Chris Neil (thumb), Milan Michalek (upper body), Matt Puempel (ankle).

Status report: Cameron is making three changes against the Panthers: Hammond will back up Anderson, Greening goes in for Smith, and Cowen, who has been a healthy scratch for five games, replaces Wiercioch. … MacArthur returned to the lineup Saturday after missing 18 games with a concussion. He played 12:54 and had an assist in his return.

Who’s hot: Barkov has two goals and three assists in his past three games. … Huberdeau has two goals and two assists in his past three games. … Jagr has three assists in his past three games. … Lazar has two goals in his past two games. … Condra has two assists in his past two games.

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