Tampa Bay Lightning at Ottawa Senators: Reunion with Gabriel Dumont

Tampa Bay Lightning at Ottawa Senators: GAME# 41

Time: 7:00 pm Eastern Time

Location: Canadian Tire Centre

Broadcast/Streaming: SN1, CITY, TVAS, SUN

Opponent SBNation Site: Silver Seven Sens

Last night, while most of Canada was watching their large teenage sons win a gold medal at the IIHF World Junior Championship, the Senators won a hockey match against the San Jose Sharks, 6-5. There’s a wonderful line in the Silver Seven Sens game recap about this, showing exactly where their fanbase’s mentality is at this point in the season:

”Of course, the Ottawa Senators chose the moment when everyone gave up on them and stopped watching in favour of something more fulfilling to put together a miraculous comeback that will probably stand as one of their best games of the season. Who could have possibly seen that coming? Not me. I never expect the Sens to win these days.”

According to the recap, the Sens had two very bad periods capped with one excellent third period. Their best player was Mark Stone, who not only made the play that led to the only goal in the first period, but also scored late in the second to keep the 4-1 (5-2, etc.) game within reach.

Silver Seven Sens blogger Beata (@CBeataE) outlined other notable performances on the team, and they are, of course, players that the Bolts have to watch out for: newly acquired first-line forward Matt Duchene, Stone’s other winger Ryan Dzingel, their center on the second line Derrick Brassard, and first-line winger Mike Hoffman.

Interestingly, the weakest defensive pair seems to be Dion Phaneuf and Cody Ceci. That’s a highly paid weakest d-pair, and I hope Coach Guy Boucher sees fit to put them out against the Bolts’ second line often.

Last time the Bolts met the Senators, it was also in sunny Ottawa, and had to go to a shootout for the final 4-3 decision, with both Brayden Point and Steven Stamkos beating goalie Craig Anderson for the win. Tonight he’ll likely sit, due to playing yesterday’s game against the Sharks, so we’ll probably see Mike Condon in net. According to Bryan Burns, Bolts have won the last three of their games in Ottawa, with Vasilevskiy allowing only five goals against in all three wins.

For more of Tampa’s stats in their last ten games, go check out @loserpoints’ Ten Game Stats Report.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Forward Lines

Vladislav Namestnikov — Steven Stamkos — Nikita Kucherov

Ondrej Palat — Brayden Point — Tyler Johnson

Alex Killorn — Yanni Gourde — Cory Conacher

Chris Kunitz — Cedric Paquette — Ryan Callahan

Defense Pairings

Victor Hedman — Jake Dotchin

Mikhail Sergachev — Anton Stralman

Braydon Coburn — Dan Girardi

Goaltenders

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Louis Domingue

Lineup notes:

Sergachev: officially staying.

Will Coach Cooper go for an 11/7 split and scratch someone on that fourth line, since the lineup he used against Montreal failed to produce (not that that was entirely their fault)? If so, would the benched guy be Paquette, or would it be Conacher? We’ll figure it out after morning skate.

Slight change in D pairings with Coburn and Sustr playing together and Koekkoek playing with Girardi. #Bolts

— Caley Chelios (@CaleyChelios) January 6, 2018

Ottawa Senators

Forwards

Mike Hoffman - Matt Duchene - Bobby Ryan

Ryan Dzingel - Derick Brassard - Mark Stone

Tom Pyatt - Jean-Gabriel Pageau - Zack Smith

Gabriel Dumont - Colin White - Alexandre Burrows

Defense

Johnny Oduya - Erik Karlsson

Dion Phaneuf - Cody Ceci

Ben Harpur - Thomas Chabot

Goaltenders

Mike Condon

Craig Anderson

Lineup notes:

Colin White has been recalled. Nate Thompson is out tonight. Sens play Tampa Bay tonight

— Brent Wallace (@tsn_wally) January 6, 2018