Game 58 Preview: Ottawa Senators @ Nashville Predators

The Ottawa Senators roll into Nashville tonight to kick off a quick little two game road trip. Nashville will be seeking to exact some revenge for their 4-3 overtime defeat at the hands of these same Sens less than two weeks ago in Ottawa.

Here is the projected line-up for tonight’s affair:

Some thoughts:

• Fredrik Claesson returns to the line-up in place of Ben Harpur. If Harpur wants to keep his spot as an NHL regular, he’s got a lot of work to do.
• There aren’t expected to be any changes to the forward group. Ryan Dzingel will rejoin the team in Chicago as he continues to attend to a personal matter.
• Frank Seravalli reported today that, as it stands, Mike Hoffman seems more likely to stay than to be traded. Good.
• Speaking of Hoffman, his partnership with Matt Duchene has blossomed in the last couple of weeks. Duchene is up to 27 points in 43 games with the Sens, including 21 in his last 19 played after a cold start to his time in the nation’s capital.
• It is extremely early, and we have seen occasional stretches of solid play from him before, but Cody Ceci has genuinely been good in the two games since the Phaneuf trade.
• Mike Fisher has begun practicing with the Preds but will not be in the line-up tonight.
• Chris Wideman seems to be far enough along in his recovery that he was out on the pond in Dovercourt yesterday. Looks like everyone had a good time.

Here are the stats from nhl.com and naturalstattrick.com: