Game 69 Preview: Ottawa Senators @ Tampa Bay Lightning

After a victory of the non-moral kind (i.e. in terms of score) last night against the Panthers, the Senators will look to continue to crawl out of a top-five pick with a win over the league-leading Lightning tonight. It seems unlikely, but also the Sens being the team to break Florida’s eight-game home winning streak seemed unlikely. And here we are.

Fredrik Claesson will be scratched tonight to give Erik Burgdoefer a shot, as Boucher put it.  Other than that, the only change is Mike Condon getting the start. Here are the projected lines and pairings:

Some thoughts:

• Alexandre Burrows plays in game number 900 tonight. There’s no way he hits 1000 in a Sens uniform, is there? IS THERE??
• Mike Condon was fantastic against Calgary a few days ago. Let’s see how he does against an even better team.
• I’m not sure what Burgdoefer brings to this team that Boucher desperately wants to see, but especially, I have no idea what he brings over Claesson. Claesson’s not had an amazing year, but neither have Ben Harpur, or Cody Ceci, or Johnny Oduya if you want to go to that. I think on that list, Claesson is the most capable of playing a top-four role. Personnel decisions on this team, especially when it comes to defencemen, just keep puzzling me
• Magnus Paajarvi (-Svensson) scored two goals last night, giving him four goals in 21 games with Ottawa. Burrows has four in 57. Nate Thompson had four in 43. I think Paajarvi is more like the kind of player you want in your bottom six, a guy with speed, scoring touch, the ability to retrieve pucks. I also think Pageau would’ve been a lot happier playing with him as his wing for most of the year.
• On the bright side, tonight we should see more of the Erik Karlsson - Thomas Chabot pairing. It’s a bit of a high-risk, high-reward pairing, but then again, Oduya-Karlsson was high-risk, is-there-even-a-reward, so I like the offensive-minded pairing more. We might as well see the best of Karlsson for quite possible the last 14 games we’ll see of him in a Sens uniform./

Stats for each team:

Team Stats

Player Stats