Game 82 preview: Ottawa Senators @ Philadelphia Flyers

This is it kids. It's the last day of the NHL regular season and all 30 teams will play. The Ottawa Senators enter play in the first wild card position, one point ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins and two points ahead of the Boston Bruins. Ottawa needs one point to guarantee a playoff spot, two points to guarantee the first wild card position and possibly move up to third in the division.

With a win, Ottawa will play either the Montreal Canadiens or the Tampa Bay Lightning. An overtime loss will open up the possibility of playing the New York Rangers along with either the Canadiens or Lightning. A regulation loss would open the door to Ottawa being eliminated if Boston picks up any type of win and Pittsburgh gets at least one point.

Here is a summary of Ottawa's opponents based on how many points each team obtains.

With that out of the way, here are the lines for the Senators. There will be no changes.

MacArthur - Turris - Stone
Hoffman - Zibanejad - Ryan
Condra - Pageau - Lazar
Smith - Legwand - Chiasson

Methot - Karlsson
Wiercioch - Ceci
Borowiecki - Gryba

Hammond (starter)
Anderson

Some notes for today:

• On the morning of 10 February, Ottawa was 20-22-9 and 14 points behind the Boston Bruins for the final playoff spot. I never believed in them, but here they are, on the cusp of one of the greatest journeys to the NHL playoffs in history thanks to going 22-4-4 in their last 30 games.
• Clarke MacArthur has at least a point in six straight games with three goals and five assists.
• Ottawa has 12 players with nine or more goals. Can one or more of Jean-Gabriel Pageau, David Legwand or Erik Condra hit double digits today? All three are currently at nine goals.
• Pageau for his part has played at a 15 goals, 15 assists for 30 points per 82 games pace this season.
• This will be Ottawa's 25th game in 46 days which included five sets of back-to-back games and more than a day off between games only on two occasions. If they do make the playoffs, they will get a minimum of three days off.
• Andrew Hammond will end the season at 23 starts, one behind Robin Lehner's 24. I wonder how many times a team has had three different goalies start at least 20 games.
• Erik Karlsson has 21 goals and the other seven defencemen to have played for the team this year have combined for 13 goals.
• Bobby Ryan has just one assist in his last nine games and one goal in the last 19. Is today the day the Cherry Hill native breaks out? Did you know that is from Cherry Hill, New Jersey which is very close to Philadelphia?
• The Flyers don't have a lot to play for as a team, but Jakub Voracek is three points behind Sidney Crosby and John Tavares for the points lead. Voracek is tied for the NHL lead with 59 assists.