Game 45 Preview: Ottawa Senators @ Los Angeles Kings

It’s the second half of what used to be the back-to-back-of-death!

The Senators head just a bit to the northwest from yesterday to take on the Los Angeles Kings, who they’re now tied with in the standings for second last. The back to back means no morning skate to get lineups from, and after last night’s blender I’m not even going to try to guess at what we’ll see to start the game. If you were expecting Marcus Hogberg to get the start due to the back to back - nope. Anders Nilsson’s performance last night was enough to get him the start again tonight.

The only lineup change is Christian Wolanin coming in for Ben Harpur. Harpur sustained an upper body injury in last night’s game.

Game Notes:

• Congratulations to the Duchenes! If you missed the news, Matt and Ashley welcomed Beau David Newell Duchene into the world just before 5pm yesterday
• Anders Nilsson did have a good game last night (0.970 SV% on a relatively subdued 33 shots), though I’m not sure going right back to him two nights in a row is a great idea
• That said, if you’re going to let it ride with Nilsson, the Kings are the team to do it against. They’ve got the lowest rate of goals in the league.
• If you’re wondering if the Kings’ goal scoring problems are SH% driven - partially. They’ve got the second lowest team SH%, but their shot generation is also near the bottom of the league.
• The bottom of the league is a log-jam. After all of tonight’s games are done the Sens could be in 31st, or only the games played tiebreaker out of 25th.
• The Senators haven’t earned points in two road games in a row yet this season/

Here’s how the two teams match up statistically, courtesy of NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick:

Team Stats

Player Stats