Game 77 Preview: Florida Panthers @ Ottawa Senators

Some traditional thoughts:

• Referring to White as an emergency call-up likely means the Sens still have one call-up left this season. Bruce Garrioch suggested on Tuesday that it could be Filip Gustavsson. We’ll wait and see. Personally, my money’s on Gabriel Gagne for an NHL shot before the season’s done.
• I’m not sure I get the point of healthy scratching Ben Harpur over and over. Sure, I don’t love his game, but he’s on a one-way contract for the next two seasons. Probably best to try him in a bunch of different scenarios in a lost season and find out what you’ve got. Maybe more I don’t understand the point of giving him a two-year extension and then scratching him over and over. I’m hoping he turns out like Mark Borowiecki - a guy who had no NHL experience before his first one-way contract, who looked lost early, but who seems to have come into his own after a couple years as a third-pairing guy.
• I’d be alright with swapping Tom Pyatt with Colin White or Filip Chlapik. Pyatt has been among the least controversial players this season, but I still think we’d all agree that his quiet, responsible game doesn’t jive well with Mike Hoffman’s “goals or bust” style
• Mark Stone will probably play again before the end of the season. He remains the team’s leading scorer with 62 points in 58 games, despite many of the team’s players having played in all 76 to date.
• Chris Wideman will not play before the end of the year. Boucher confirmed this morning that doctors have shut him down. Barring a 2017 Clarke MacArthur moment, we may have seen the last of Wideman as a Senator.
• Elliotte Friedman’s 31 Thoughts had a great opening point: why not allow healthy scratches to be brought in like in baseball? You can swap a guy in the press box for a guy on the bench, but the guy leaving the game now can’t come back. It’d help teams in case of injury, but also could give you the rookies a chance to play in the third period of a blowout. Call me intrigued.
• The Senators are 30th in the league, two points behind each the Canucks and Coyotes, but with one more game to play. The Panthers are three points out of the playoffs with a game in hand on the Devils. A regulation Florida win tonight would do wonders for both team’s hopes, just sayin’.
• By the way:
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Good morning. Erik Karlsson leads all defencemen in points-per-game.

— Colin Cudmore (@CudmoreColin) March 29, 2018

Some stats:

Team Stats

Category	Ottawa	Senators	Boston	Bruins
--	Value	Rank	Value	Rank
Goals/GP	2.68	25th	3.25	6th
Goals against/GP	3.44	30th	2.56	3rd
Shots/GP	30.7	24th	32.8	11th
Shots against/GP	33.0	25th	29.3	2nd
Powerplay %	16.7	26th	23.5	4th
Penalty Kill %	76.2	27th	83.3	4th
Corsi (5v5, Score & Venue Adjusted)	46.32	29th	53.97	2nd
Fenwick (5v5, SVA)	46.94	27th	54.01	1st

Player Stats

	Ottawa	Senators	Boston	Bruins
--	Player	#	Player	#
Goals	Matt Duchene	27	Brad Marchand	34
Assists	Erik Karlsson (out)	53	Brad Marchand	51
Points	Karlsson/Stone (both out)	62	Brad Marchand	85
Shots	Mike Hoffman	253	David Pastrnak	236
TOI/GP	Erik Karlsson (out)	26:44	Zdeno Chara	22:53