In the first three weeks of 2008, Ottawa Senators coach John Paddock has watched his team put together a four-game win streak and his entire top forward line suffer from the injury bug.

Captain Daniel Alfredsson is the latest ailing player, having suffered a hip injury in Thursday's 5-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.

Daniel Alfredsson's 11-game points streak came to a halt on Thursday.
(Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

He'll test the hip during Saturday's game-day skate before announcing whether he'll play that night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Alfredsson, who left in the second period with the hip flexor problem, stayed out of the rest of the game for precautionary reasons. The injury put an end to Alfredsson's 11-game points streak.

"It's a little sore today, but better than yesterday, so it's day by day," said Alfredsson, who also didn't practise Friday, of the muscle injury. "I started feeling it in the first period [Thursday] and aggravated it a little bit on the first shift of the second, so just to make sure it doesn't get worse, I decided to go off. We'll see how it reacts to treatment here and go from there."

Alfredsson, who tops the Senators with 29 goals and 60 points, missed five games last season with a hip flexor injury.

His injury follows the loss of forward Dany Heatley, who is out at least another month with a separated shoulder.

Centre Jason Spezza, the third member of Ottawa's top unit, left Sunday's contest against the New York Islanders after he was flattened by an open-ice hit by Islanders defenceman Freddy Meyer. Spezza returned for the Senators' next game.

"We may have to win 2-1 instead of 4-1 … but you can't change too much because those guys are missing," Spezza said of Alfredsson and Heatley. "We're going to have to find a way to win.

"We had a five-goal outburst last night, but we're probably not going to get five every night. We're just going to have to buckle down."

With files from the Canadian Press