Game 21 preview: Ottawa Senators @ Dallas Stars

After a successful home-stand where the Ottawa Senators took eight out of 10 points, they will head on the road for three games starting with tonight's game in Dallas against the Stars. The Senators are coming off a 4-0 win against Philadelphia and have points in five straight games since a 7-5 loss in Nashville. The Stars have won five in a row since a 3-2 home loss to Toronto. The Stars are 0-2-0 against the Leafs and 17-2-0 against the rest of the league.

Craig Anderson will start and Shane Prince is back in the lineup with Matt Puempel sent back to the AHL. Here are the lines and pairings from Gord Wilson.

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

Methot - Karlsson
Cowen - Ceci
Borowiecki - Wideman

Anderson (starter)
Driedger

Some notes for tonight:

• After causing some panic over a couple of good but not elite games earlier in the season, Erik Karlsson is once again a Norris Trophy front runner. Sure makes a mockery of those blaming the team's struggles on their best player.
• The Stars' John Klingberg is currently leading NHL defencemen in points. He is one point ahead of Karlsson having also played one more game.
• Mike Hoffman turns 26 today and is having a point per game season. Assuming that he files for arbitration again this summer, he will be an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2017.
• Dallas is third in the NHL with 18 power play goals. Ottawa is tied for 12th with 13 goals on the power play.
• Only Winnipeg and Boston have given up more goals on the penalty kill than Ottawa's 16.
• Erik Karlsson has a six-game points streak.
• Shane Prince's return should hopefully help the second line, which has been a non-factor recently. Matt Puempel was simply not a fit on an NHL second line.
• In 210 minutes with Patrick Wiercioch and Cody Ceci on the ice, the Senators have got 46.3% of the shot attempts, which is not great. However in 87 minutes of Ceci with someone else (mostly Jared Cowen) the Senators have 33.9% of the shot attempts.
• After two straight shutouts, Craig Anderson's save percentage for the season is up to 92.1%./

Here are some stats for the two teams tonight. All stats are from NHL.com except Corsi and Fenwick are from www.puckon.net. Note that Corsi is now adjusted for score as well as the venue and event type.