The most predominant question on the minds of a lot of Senators fans this morning is "where has that been all season?"

Heading into what looked like an ultra-difficult two game road trip visiting two of the hottest teams in the league in a back to back situation, while leaving their top scorer at home, the expectations weren't very high.

They caught Florida off guard on Monday night, and then put the boots to league leading Tampa on Tuesday to the tune of 7-4 on Tuesday. It didn't start out that way as the Bolts started off dominating and took a 1-0 lead in the first five minutes, but Ottawa answered with 3 quick ones and didn't look back.

It was the first time since an October 18th game against Arizona that they put up 7 goals. October 18th, 2016 that is.

Ryan Dzingel and Mike Hoffman each reached the 20 goal plateau, Dzingel for the first time and Hoffman for the fourth straight season. Hoffman also added his 21st later on, and the Sens also got goals from Magnus Paajarvi (his 3rd in 2 nights), Erik Karlsson, Tom Pyatt and Marian Gaborik.

Erik Burgdoerfer got an assist on Hoffman's first of the game, which was the blueliner's first NHL point.

That offensive outburst was enough to make a winner of Mike Condon, who heading into the game had the league's lowest goal support. J.T. Miller, recently acquired in the trade deadline deal that also brought Ryan McDonagh to Tampa, had a hat trick in the losing effort, with McDonagh adding the fourth. Miller, Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov each had 3 points, but there wasn't much support from the rest of the squad offensively as they couldn't match the Senators offensive output. I can't believe I just wrote that.

The Senators chased Andrei Vasilevskiy after 40 minutes, allowing six goals on 29 shots, including 2 power play goals on 2 shots as the Senators capitalized on both of their man advantages. That is a goaltending performance akin to a lot that Senators fans have seen this season, but it is nice to see it on the other side for a change. It wasn't all his fault, with the Senators getting a couple of friendly bounces, most notably Karlsson's centering pass that went in off the skate of Chris Kunitz from about 20 feet away but past his goalie.

The Senators will try yet again to get their first 3 game winning streak since the Western Canada swing in October. They have won consecutive games 6 other times since then, but have fallen short on each occasion trying to get the elusive 3rd straight game.

They will host Jason Spezza and the Dallas Stars on Friday night. Marc Methot left the Stars' game in Montreal on Tuesday with a hand injury and it is unknown if he will be available for tonight's game in Toronto, let alone Friday's contest in Ottawa.

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