Game 68 preview: Tampa Bay Lightning @ Ottawa Senators

The streaking Ottawa Senators will look for their seventh straight win when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight. Ottawa finished a perfect three-game road trip with a 4-2 win in Colorado on Saturday while the Lightning continued their march for a playoff spot with a 3-2 win against the Rangers last night.

The Senators will be without stars Mark Stone and Craig Anderson who are out with injuries as well as non-star Mark Borowiecki who is also out with an injury. On the other hand, Kyle Turris and Bobby Ryan will return to the lineup!

Here are the expected lines and pairings for tonight:

Smith - Turris - Dzingel
Burrows - Brassard - Ryan
Hoffman - Pageau - Pyatt
Stålberg - Kelly - Wingels

Methot - Karlsson
Phaneuf - Ceci
Claesson - Wideman

Condon (starter)
Driedger

Some notes for tonight:

• The Lightning's recent surge (HA! Funny Adnan!) has brought them to within a point of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. They could move into a playoff spot tonight if results go their way.
• It took a while, but Erik Karlsson finally had his second assist from Saturday removed. He is back to 49 assists for the season.
• Fredrik Claesson has nine points in his last 11 games. Mark Borowiecki has nine points in his last 149 games. Claesson has been a healthy scratch for Borowiecki multiple times this season.
• Good guy Mike Hoffman added another two points on Saturday. He has nine points in eight games since returning from injury. He leads all Senators forwards with 0.8 points per game this season.
• Karlsson has closed to within five shots of Hoffman for the team lead. Karlsson has played seven more games though.
• Bobby Ryan will return to the lineup tonight with a fully functional hand and a head free of haters.
• Karlsson is three assists behind Connor McDavid for the league lead in assists. McDavid has 14 games left while Karlsson has 15 remaining.
• Tonight is the beginning of three straight games at home for Ottawa. After that, nine of their 12 games are away from home. This set will also be the last time Ottawa has consecutive games at home.
• The final 15 games will be played over the course of 27 days and include three sets of back-to-back and only one instance of two days off.
• Ottawa might want to cover that Nikita Kucherov guy on the power play this time.
• This game will feature the two best defenceman in the game in Erik Karlsson and Victor Hedman. A couple of good Swedish lads./

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