Game 42 preview: Ottawa Senators @ St. Louis Blues

Without a playoff position in hand, the Ottawa Senators will be eager to put one of their games in hand on Boston to good use and hope to (at least) keep pace with Toronto tonight when they visit the St. Louis Blues.

The only change to the lineup is on the bench, with Matt O'Connor being sent back down (presumably to get some playing time) and Chris Dreidger taking his place riding the pine for the big club.

Today's skate was optional, but we're told no changes so here are the lines and pairings from Saturday:

Smith - Brassard - Stone
Dzingel - Turris - Ryan
Hoffman - Pageau - Pyatt
Kelly - Lazar - Neil

Methot - Karlsson
Phaneuf - Ceci
Borowiecki - Wideman

Condon (starter)
Dreidger

Some notes for tonight:

• Bobby Ryan seem to have pretty good games against St. Louis. He sure could use the boost right now, and so could the team.
• Ken Hitchcock back at it with referring to Karlsson as an "Offenseman". Karlsson's response was quite good.
• The Blues continue to be one of the stingier teams when it comes to allowing chances, which is good because their goaltending has not been great this season
• How bad has their goaltending been? Carter Hutton has the better numbers, with a .905 save percentage
• Vladimir Tarasenko is cruising along at a point per game pace right now, though historically he's been relatively quiet against Ottawa compared to his career numbers with only three points in six games
• Ottawa hasn't lost in St. Louis since November 2010, but they've only had three games there since then

Here are some stats for the two teams tonight. All stats are from NHL.com except Corsi and Fenwick are from Natural Stat Trick.