Game 33 preview: San Jose Sharks @ Ottawa Senators

The Ottawa Senators return home for one game before heading back out to Florida for a couple of games before the Christmas break. Tonight's opponents are the San Jose Sharks, who won 5-4 in Toronto last night. The Senators lost 2-1 in Washington on Wednesday and have dropped to fourth in the division, only one point ahead of the final wild card spot.

Craig Anderson will start with Jared Cowen expected to be a healthy scratch. Mark Borowiecki will return to defence and Shane Prince skated on the fourth line. Here are the expected lines from Dean Brown.

Smith - Turris - Stone
Hoffman - Zibanejad - Ryan
Dziurzynski - Pageau - Chiasson
Prince - Lazar - Neil

Methot - Karlsson
Wiercioch - Ceci
Borowiecki - Wideman

Anderson (starter)
Hammond

Some notes for tonight:

• Tonight will be Erik Karlsson's 200th consecutive game since returning from his Achilles injury.
• The Sharks blew a 2-0 lead to fall behind 4-2 and then came back to win in overtime last night. That must have been quite the range of emotions.
• While I still have some minor quibbles with the lineup (i.e. Borowiecki playing instead of Cowen) it is nice to have a mostly sane lineup.
• Karlsson played the final 4:40 against Washington. His 35 points are 13 more than the 22 combined points by the other seven defencemen on the team. Karlsson's 28 assists are exactly twice as many as the 14 combined by the other seven defencemen.
• Another fun Karlsson stat is that he has had either a shot on goal or a point in 150 consecutive regular season games.
• What odds could we have received on Jean-Gabriel Pageau having more goals than Mark Stone at this point in the season?
• Chris Neil does not have a point in his last 17 games.
• Despite all the minutes, including first power play time, Zack Smith is pointless and with only four shots on goal in his last four games.
• Karlsson has been on the ice for 59 of Ottawa's 95 goals this season or 62% of them. Only P.K. Subban has been on the ice for more of his team's goals (63 out of 100).
• Patrick Wiercioch played a really good game against Washington. The Senators need more games like that from their second best defenceman./