Game 63 Preview: Ottawa Senators @ Vegas Golden Knights

The Ottawa Senators are making their third major west coast road trip of the season, kicking this one off with a match against the league’s newest and hottest franchise: the Vegas Golden Knights. Both the Sens and Knights are five points away from the league’s contours, although it’s Vegas on top and Ottawa on the bottom.

The Senators have quietly gone on yet another five-game losing streak, although considering they’ve already reached that three times previously this season, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. February was still their winningest month of the season, however, picking up six W’s before dying down at the end.

Lineup Notes

Marian Gaborik is out tonight with an undisclosed injury. Taking his place is Alex Burrows, who returns after serving a ten-game suspension for kneeing Taylor Hall. Mark Borowiecki will be back in the lineup despite leaving the ice for precautionary reasons following a fight on Tuesday.

The opposition are dealing with a few injuries as well. They lose defenceman Luca Sbisa for a few months after already missing significant time earlier in the season, as well as Nate Schmidt who is day-to-day. James Neal is also questionable for tonight, although guaranteed to be drawing in is Shea Theodore.

The confirmed starters are Craig Anderson and Marc-André Fleury.

Projected Lineup

As it is most games, this is a guess based on which combos were used in the previous game.

Game Notes

• If you’d told me at the beginning of the season William Karlsson would be in the race for the Rocket Richard trophy, there’s no way I would’ve believed you. Yet there he is near the top of the NHL’s leaderboard for goals, ahead of players like Kucherov and Laine. The 24% shooting percentage definitely helps.
• It’s been a while since Mark Stone has scored, with only a single tally in his last twelve games. In that same time frame, however, he’s picked up fourteen assists, including nine on his current six-game point streak.
• The Sens have had a league-leading 37 skaters play at least one game for them this season. Pretty much everybody in Belleville has gotten a look at some point, and we may see even more down the stretch.
• It’s a late start tonight, beginning at 10:00 p.m. eastern. Worry not, as this is the last late start (after 9:00 p.m.) for the remainder of the season./

Head-to-Head Stats

Data from NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick.

Team Stats

Player Stats