Game 65 preview: Ottawa Senators @ Dallas Stars

The Ottawa Senators will look to match a season high with their fourth straight win when they visit the Dallas Stars tonight. The Senators won four in a row in both November and December and are on their longest winning streak since winning three in a row in January. The Stars have won two in a row and the 4-2 win in Washington on Monday was the Capitals' first home loss of 2017.

Ottawa will be without Kyle Turris who is out with a finger injury. Chris DiDomenico could make his NHL debut in Turris' place judging by the morning skate. Here are the likely lines and pairings for Ottawa.

Burrows - Brassard - Stone
Hoffman - Pageau - Pyatt
Dzingel - Smith - DiDomenico
Stålberg - Kelly - Wingels

Methot - Karlsson
Phaneuf - Ceci
Borowiecki - Wideman

Anderson (starter)
Condon

Some notes for tonight:

• Ottawa remains firmly second in the division. The Canadiens won their sixth straight game to go six points ahead of Ottawa, although the Senators hold three games in hand. Ottawa is four points ahead of Boston with two games in hand in the race for home ice advantage in round one.
• With games against three of the worst teams in the league on this road trip, Ottawa has a great chance to cement their seeding before the schedule gets much tougher in the second half of March.
• The Stars are 28th in the NHL in goals allowed per game. Tomorrow the Senators play Arizona who are 29th in goals allowed per game. Ottawa ends the road trip in Colorado on Saturday with the Avalanche ranked 30th in goals allowed per game.
• That is to say that our friend Erik should hopefully rack up a few points on this trip.
• Other members of the #LikeableThree (Mike Hoffman and Mark Stone) should also be able to feast on the defences on schedule this week.
• The Senators have now won an NHL best 80.6% of their games when scoring first, going 25-4-2.
• Ottawa is 23-8-6 in games decided by one goal or games that were one-goal games before the empty net goal(s). They are 13-14 in other games.
• Ottawa has not had a game go to overtime since the all-star break.
• The Stars, Coyotes and Avalanche are also in the bottom three in the NHL in goals allowed at 4-on-5. Should also allow the power play to get going for Ottawa.
• Craig Anderson's save percentage is up to 93.0% for the season.
• Kyle Turris had been avoiding face-offs for a while and now he is going to miss a game as well. He was one of nine players to have played every game this season. It has been a remarkably lucky season for Ottawa injury wise.

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