Game 39 preview: Ottawa Senators @ Philadelphia Flyers

The Ottawa Senators will start a four game road trip against four teams all outside of a playoff spot tonight in Philadelphia. After tonight, Ottawa will head to Colorado, Arizona and Dallas. The Senators are 22nd in the NHL, the Flyers are 25th, the Avalanche are 23rd, the Coyotes are 27th and Stars are 20th. Ottawa is pretty unlikely to make the playoffs, but an unsuccessful road trip here could be the nail in the coffin.

Craig Anderson will start and the Senators did not skate today but here are the expected lines.

MacArthur - Turris - Stone
Hoffman - Zibanejad - Ryan
Michalek - Pageau - Chiasson
Greening - Legwand - Condra

Phillips - Karlsson
Cowen - Ceci
Wiercioch - Gryba

Anderson (starter)
Lehner

Some notes for tonight:

• Patrick Wiercioch's even strength on-ice Corsi with Eric Gryba against Tampa Bay: 1 for, 10 against in just over two minutes. With Erik Karlsson? 10 for, eight against.
• The Senators were outshot 10-0 on even strength with Eric Gryba on the ice.
• Ottawa might end the season with six or seven guys with 20+ goals and no one with 30 goals.
• Mike Hoffman is going to get paid. His box score stats are great with a +17 plus-minus rating and being on pace for 27 goals.
• After accounting for zone starts (ignoring the first 10 seconds after a face-off), Wiercioch and Karlsson have had a 61.9% Corsi together in 98 minutes this season.
• Bobby Ryan will return home to Philadelphia, but only for tonight. He's really been great over the last month or so.
• Craig Anderson's strong play continues to ruin the Senators draft position. He will likely be able to fetch the Senators a first round pick (if not more) if they do choose to trade him.
• Jared Cowen and Cody Ceci both continue to be very, very bad. They have been a nightmare for several weeks now.
• The Flyers have the NHL's leading scorer, another guy on pace for over 90 points and a starting goalie with a 91.6 save percentage. They are some how still near the bottom of the league.
• Will we see Jean-Gabriel Pageau demoted once Curtis Lazar is back in the lineup? That would be very unfortunate because Pageau is definitely the better player right now./

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