Game 28 preview: Ottawa Senators @ Los Angeles Kings

A red hot Erik Karlsson will lead his minions into Los Angeles to play against Norris Trophy winning Drew Doughty (lol) and the rest of the Kings. Karlsson has seven points on the first two games of this road trip and has taken over his rightful place as the NHL's leading scorer among defencemen. The Senators are in second place in the Atlantic Division, two points ahead of the Boston Bruins in third and four points ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning in fourth. The Kings are currently outside a playoff spot, although they are only one point behind the Jets and have four games in hand.

This game will be a 4:00 start, which is a 1:00 local start, thus there will be no pregame skate. Marc Methot is expected to return to the lineup, so here are the likely lines and pairings.

Hoffman - Brassard - Stone
Dzingel - Turris - Ryan
Smith - Pageau - Pyatt
Robinson - Kelly - Neil

Methot - Karlsson
Phaneuf - Wideman
Ceci - Borowiecki

Condon (starter)
Hammond

Some notes for tonight:

• Wow that was a fortunate win against San Jose wasn't it? Having blown a two-goal lead, and being outshot 37-17 on the night, to get a bounce like that in the final two minutes was incredible.
• Erik Karlsson ended the night tied for fourth place in NHL scoring on Wednesday. He is back to ninth now. However, he is only two points behind third place.
• Only Connor McDavid has more assists than Karlsson this season.
• The other two members of the #LikeableThree continued their good run with Mike Hoffman extending his points streak to six games.Mark Stone scored a goal, his sixth in nine games.
• Mike Condon continues his incredible run of form with 35 saves on 37 shots against the Sharks. He has started six games for Ottawa, which include two shutouts, and another two games with save percentages of 94.6 and 96.9. His save percentage for the season is 94.5.
• Aside from Hoffman, Stone and Kyle Turris, only Ryan Dzingel is on pace to get 40 points this season among Ottawa forwards.
• If you are a fan of a below average player sticking around for a long time, tonight will be Chris Neil's 1,000th career game.
• The Ottawa Senators power play is just about league average in conversion rate now.
• The Kings are one of three teams not to allow a goal during overtime. They are 5-0 in the five-minute overtime period.
• The Senators are continuing to creep lower in the shots allowed per game statistic. Thankfully, the goaltending has been excellent so far this season.
• With a healthy gap between Ottawa and Detroit, Florida, Toronto and Buffalo, the Senators might just need to stay ahead of one of Tampa Bay or Boston to guarantee one of the top three spots in the division. Otherwise, it could be a fight for the wild card spots.
• After a third of the season done, Ottawa is in line to have home-ice advantage in a playoff series for the first time since the first round in the 2006-2007 season.
• Anze Kopitar has only 14 points in 21 games.
• The Sharks allow the second fewest shots per game in the NHL. The Kings allow the fewest and the Anaheim Ducks allow the seventh fewest. This road trip is a tough test on that count./

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