Game 25 preview: New York Islanders @ Ottawa Senators

The Senators will honour long time captain Daniel Alfredsson tonight when they host the New York Islanders. Alfredsson will skate with the team before the game and his return is one of the few bright spots with the club right now. Ottawa has lost five out of six games and has just one regulation win in its last 12 games, spanning almost a month.

Craig Anderson will start and Andrew Hammond will back him up with Robin Lehner out with an injury. Bobby Ryan and Marc Methot are game time decisions and could play.

Here are the lines and pairings from this morning from Sylvain St-Laurent.

MacArthur - Turris - Stone
Condra - Legwand - Neil
Hoffman - Zibanejad - Chiasson
Michalek - Smith - Lazar

Phillips - Karlsson
Cowen - Ceci
Borowiecki - Gryba

Anderson (starter)
Hammond

Some notes for tonight:

• No one the team is currently on pace for 60 points. That is not a very good thing when you are not great defensively.
• The gap between the Senators and the last playoff spot is now four points. Can't let it get too much bigger or it is going to start to get even more depressing around here.
• Chris Neil and Mika Zibanejad are tied with seven points. That's the kind of season it has been for Zibanejad.
• Why is Chris Phillips?
• The Senators three right handed defencemen have played every game this season while the five left handed defencemen have all missed at least five games.
• After this game we have Pittsburgh, Vancouver, Los Angeles and Boston. Le sigh.
• With Alfredsson being in the pre-game skate, if you add Methot and Ryan as game time additions, that's got to lift the mood a lot though right?
• The Islanders are one point off first place overall in the NHL so it is worth reminding that they are really, really good.
• All eight of Mike Hoffman's goals have been even strength goals. He is 10th on the team in total power play ice time.
• There is that pre-game skate though right. Tonight is going to be so fantastic until the game starts.

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