Game 27 Preview: Ottawa Senators @ Los Angeles Kings
Sens look to bounce back (again)
The Senators are right back at it tonight, getting on a bus going the other direction from their hotel to visit the Los Angeles Kings.
Last night’s game was a significant improvement over Sunday’s game - but “better than Sunday” is about as low of a bar as you can set for the team this season. Let’s just get straight to the lines. There’s only one change.
Stone - Brassard - Ryan
Smith - Duchene - Dzingel
Hoffman - Pageau - Dumont
Burrows - Thompson - Pyatt
Harpur - Karlsson
Phaneuf - Chabot
Oduya - Ceci
Condon (starter)
Anderson
Here are some thoughts on tonight’s game:
- Erik Karlsson may not have a point in 10 games, but he’s got 75 shot attempts. That’s third in the league. Something has to give eventually.
- Mike Hoffman is second on the team with 59 in that time frame.
- Guess which team has the best SV% so far this season? Of course it’s the Kings - just what a team that’s having problems scoring needs!
- Guess which team has the worst SV%? (It’s actually the Oilers, but the Sens are less than 0.1% ahead of them).
- Kings are expected to start Darcy Kuemper. Yes, he’s the back-up but he’s also got a higher SV% than Jonathan Quick does this season.
- This may be a surprise, but the line blender was mostly left on the shelf yesterday. There was some switching things up, but generally only for a shift then the lines were put back to where they were to start. /
Here are some stats for tonight’s game, via NHL.com except Corsi/Fenwick from NaturalStatTrick.com:
Team Stats
| Category | Ottawa | Senators | Boston | Bruins |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -- | Value | Rank | Value | Rank |
| Goals/GP | 2.68 | 25th | 3.25 | 6th |
| Goals against/GP | 3.44 | 30th | 2.56 | 3rd |
| Shots/GP | 30.7 | 24th | 32.8 | 11th |
| Shots against/GP | 33.0 | 25th | 29.3 | 2nd |
| Powerplay % | 16.7 | 26th | 23.5 | 4th |
| Penalty Kill % | 76.2 | 27th | 83.3 | 4th |
| Corsi (5v5, Score & Venue Adjusted) | 46.32 | 29th | 53.97 | 2nd |
| Fenwick (5v5, SVA) | 46.94 | 27th | 54.01 | 1st |
Player Stats
| Ottawa | Senators | Boston | Bruins | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -- | Player | # | Player | # |
| Goals | Matt Duchene | 27 | Brad Marchand | 34 |
| Assists | Erik Karlsson (out) | 53 | Brad Marchand | 51 |
| Points | Karlsson/Stone (both out) | 62 | Brad Marchand | 85 |
| Shots | Mike Hoffman | 253 | David Pastrnak | 236 |
| TOI/GP | Erik Karlsson (out) | 26:44 | Zdeno Chara | 22:53 |
