(My Sportsbook) - The Ottawa Senators are obviously thrilled to be on a two-game winning streak after opening the season with a 2-1 loss to New Jersey. Unfortunately, the momentum the team built with victories over Toronto and Phoenix in the last week has slowly dissipated during an early-season hiatus.

Jacques Martin's club won't take game ice again until Wednesday when it takes on the Carolina Hurricanes at the Corel Centre, having last played on Tuesday versus the Coyotes. The Carolina tilt sparks a span in which the Sens will play three games in four nights.

Against Phoenix, captain Daniel Alfredsson scored the game-winner with 5:14 remaining in the contest - a mere minute after Ottawa had killed off a 5-on-3 advantage. In all the Senators killed seven of the Coyotes' eight power-play chances, continuing their early-season prowess on the penalty kill.

"We got a big energy boost when we killed off the five-on-three,'' Alfredsson said. "Both teams' penalty killing was really good.''

Through three games, Ottawa has quelled 18 of the 20 power plays it has faced this season, good for a 90.0 percent clip. That number ranks the Sens fourth in the entire National Hockey League.

That stat is especially pivotal because of the NHL's crackdown on obstruction and interference, which has ballooned the penalty numbers throughout the league thus far. That's making life hard on teams' top defensemen, namely the Senators' Wade Redden.

In three games, Redden has averaged 26 minutes, seven seconds per-game, which leads the Senators and places 20th in the NHL.

The 25-year-old Redden, one of the top young blueliners in the league, has struggled at times during his career when more ice time has been dumped on him, but he says he just has to adjust from match to match.

"From game to game, if you play lots, you have to save your energy and pick your spots, and you have to be smarter that way," Redden, who is on the ice in both aspects of special teams, told the Ottawa Citizen. "You have to make sure your positioning is good, that you're not wasting your energy. But some games, you might play 20 minutes and be more tired than if you played 30 minutes in another game, depending on what kind of game it is."

UP NEXT Martin's troops host Carolina on Wednesday before embarking on a three-game road trip. They open on Thursday in Boston and also pay visits to Montreal and Philadelphia.