After finally getting the Islander monkey of their backs, the New York Rangers will now head to the Canadian capital of Ottawa, where they’ll try and beat the 16-6-2 Ottawa Senators for the first time this season. The Sens have beaten the Rangers this season by scores of 2-0 and 3-1. Those scores are flattering to the Rangers, though, because had it not been for superb efforts in each game from Henrik Lundqvist, the scores might have been different.

Luckily for the Rangers, Ottawa has lost five games in a row, though two of those losses came in shootouts. Make no mistake, though. The Rangers need to be extremely careful, because this is one dangerous Ottawa club.

There’s a reason they were the hottest team in the league earlier in the season. They can be THAT good. Now, they are wounded animals. They’re in a terrible slump. What better way to break out of a slump than to come out fired up against one of your top competitors in the standings, a team that you’ve dominated this season?

According to John Dellapina’s Blueshirts Blog, Marek Malik is likely to return today because Paul Mara was injured late in the game against the Islanders. No word on the severity of the injury, but it’ll be interesting to see how Rozsival plays, going from Marc Staal to Malik and how much the Rangers will be hurt by Staal seeing less ice time, which is likely since he’ll be paired with Jason Strudwick.

The Sens, who lost their last game against the Nashville Predators, 6-5, in heartbreaking fashion, will be without injured regulars Anton Volchenkov and Patrick Eaves. Volchenkov especially will be missed, as his stellar defensive play against the likes of Jaromir Jagr will be tough to replace. He’s become one of the better defensemen in the NHL.

In goal, the Sens are expected to have Martin Gerber, who started both of the prior games between the teams this season. Gerber is 13-3-1 this year, but of late, he hasn’t played well, much like the rest of the team. For the Rangers, it’ll be Henrik Lundqvist, not surprisingly.

To win, the Rangers will need to do several things. Most importantly, they need to do a better job containing the Senators’ top line of Dany Heatley, Jason Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson. They scored goals in each of the previous games and were able to largely do as they pleased against Blueshirt defenders.

The aforementioned injury to Volchenkov is key as well. Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka and Brandon Dubinsky have to keep up the style of play they exhibited in the team’s last game by taking advantage of Ottawa’s misfortune. Jagr cannot allow himself to be dominated physically by Ottawa’s lesser defenders. With Volchenkov out of the lineup, it should be easier.