Game 38 preview: Tampa Bay Lightning @ Ottawa Senators
A preview of the game between the Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning on 4 January 2015.
The Ottawa Senators will look for their third straight win when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight. Ottawa came from behind to beat the Boston Bruins 3-2 in overtime yesterday afternoon while the Lightning lost 6-3 to Pittsburgh on Friday.
Robin Lehner will start for Ottawa and the rest of the lineup will be unchanged. Here are the lines that played yesterday in Boston.
MacArthur - Turris - Stone
Hoffman - Zibanejad - Ryan
Michalek - Pageau - Chiasson
Greening - Legwand - Condra
Phillips - Karlsson
Cowen - Ceci
Wiercioch - Gryba
Lehner (starter)
Anderson
Some notes for tonight:
- Ottawa is 2-4-0 in the second game of a back-to-back this season. One of those losses was to Tampa Bay on 29 November.
- Erik Karlsson had 1 Corsi For and 11 Corsi against when paired with Chris Phillips yesterday. Without Phillips, he had 9 Corsi For and 6 Corsi against.
- Bobby Ryan has 13 points in his last 12 games.
- Mike Hoffman's 12 even strength goals are tied for eighth in the NHL. Unfortunately for Hoffman, all of his goals have been at even strength.
- Jean-Gabriel Pageau is a definite improvement on Curtis Lazar. He has been getting very tough defensive minutes and holding his own with a 51% on-ice Corsi and a 31% offensive zone start this season.
- Patrick Wiercioch continues to be a very, very good player. Hopefully he stays in the lineup even when the injured players return.
- In 27 games with Paul MacLean, Ottawa allowed 34.4 shots per game. In 10 games with Dave Cameron, the Senators have allowed 29.6 per game. The Senators have allowed under 30 shots in each of the last five games after doing it just five times in the first 32.
- How much of the improvement is a new system and how much of that is just good fortune with injuries to Chris Neil, Zack Smith, Mark Borowiecki, Chris Phillips and the loaning of Curtis Lazar to the under-20 national team?
- Ottawa would have the ninth overall pick if the season ended today.
- Robin Lehner will start for the first time since 20 December. He has allowed four goals in three of his last four starts.
Here are some stats for the two teams tonight. All stats are from NHL.com except Corsi and Fenwick are from naturalstattrick.com.
| Category | Ottawa | Tampa Bay | ||
| Player | # | Player | # | |
| Goals | Mike Hoffman | 12 | Steven Stamkos | 20 |
| Assists | Erik Karlsson | 19 | Tyler Johnson | 28 |
| Points | Bobby Ryan | 26 | Tyler Johnson | 41 |
| Shots | Erik Karlsson | 138 | Steven Stamkos | 133 |
| Average Ice time | Erik Karlsson | 27:26 | Anton Stralman | 22:26 |
| Category | Ottawa | Tampa Bay | ||
| # | Rank | # | Rank | |
| Goals For | 2.62 | 20th | 3.22 | 1st |
| Goals Against | 2.65 | 19th | 2.55 | 13th |
| Corsi % | 48.61% | 24th | 53.70% | 3rd |
| Fenwick % | 46.52% | 25th | 54.36% | 3rd |
| Shots For | 29.2 | 19th | 29.8 | 18th |
| Shots Against | 33.1 | 26th | 27.1 | 2nd |
