Game 71 preview: Ottawa Senators @ Montreal Canadiens

After the Ottawa Senators lost 3-2 in a shootout last night to the Montreal Canadiens, both teams hit the road for a rematch tonight at the Bell Centre. Last night’s game gave Montreal a two point lead on the Sens for the Atlantic division lead, although they still have one more game played. Ottawa would push into first with a win tonight, as the one less game played would give us the tiebreaker.

The lineup is expected to stay the same as yesterday, with Craig Anderson starting on the back-to-back.

Here’s the expected lineup for tonight:

Here’s some notes for tonight’s matchup:

• The last time Craig Anderson started back-to-back games was on November 26th and 27th earlier this season, stopping 65 of 66 shots en route to 2-1 and 2-0 victories against the Hurricanes and Rangers.
• Pageau hasn’t scored in his last two games against the Habs. This comes after putting up at least a point in his eight previous consecutive meetings with Montreal.
• Another player who’s started turning into a Habs slayer is Ryan Dzingel, whose goal last night gave him three points in three games.
• Dzingel also played in his 100th NHL game last night. Tonight, Mike Hoffman will be playing in his 250th.
• Looking at the defensive scoring race, Erik Karlsson’s been gaining ground, now only five points back of Brent Burns with a game in hand. Burns has gone five straight games without a point (and a whole month without a goal), whereas Karlsson has seven points in his last five games, and has so led all defensemen in goals and points in the last month.
• Karlsson’s also tied with Dougie Hamilton for the league lead in games with 3+ points (5 occurrences). It’s two less than the single-season record since 1995, which also belongs to Karlsson in 2015-16.
• One last point on Karlsson: his six shots on goal last night surpassed Mike Hoffman for the team lead in shots.
• Against the Sens in his career, Shea Weber has scored 12 points in 15 regular season games, including four power play goals. He was held without a shot last night.
• It is currently unknown as to who Montreal will be starting in net. Should they start Al Montoya, he has a .885 SV% combined in his last three games. He’s only started four games since the beginning of February.
• The battle doesn’t end tonight. The Sens and Habs face off for one last time this season in less than a week, on March 25th in Montreal./