As expected, the Ottawa Senators notched their third straight victory last night against the apparently desperate Dallas Stars.
Much like when the same two teams met back in Dallas 11 days ago, this was a game the Stars had to win. They are in a fight for their playoff lives right now and two losses to the Senators was pretty much unacceptable.
But unfortunately for Alfred Hitchcock and the boys, these aren’t the usual basement dwelling Senators. I mean sure they’re still way down there but it’s pretty clear they are done losing.
Nice of the Senators to let Dallas have a point though.
Two more points will be placed in the bank following tonight’s win over another “desperate” team in the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Similar to the Stars, the Blue Jackets find themselves in a battle for one of the two Wild Card spots in the Eastern Conference. They come into tonight’s loss four points up on the Florida Panthers but the Cats, who also fell victim to the steamrollin’ Senators, have three full games in hand.
Columbus was off yesterday and had an impressive six game winning streak on the go before tonight’s 5-2 loss.
We’ll assume the Senators go with the same line combinations because why tinker with perfection?
Dzingel-Duchene-Hoffman
Ryan-Pageau-Burrows
Paajarvi-Smith-Pyatt
McCormick-O’Brien-Gaborik
Chabot-Karlsson
Harpur-Ceci
Borowiecki-Claesson
Mike Condon is expected to get the start in goal. Puck drop is scheduled for just after 7:00 PM, assuming the Blue Jackets even bother to show up.
