Game 27 preview: Ottawa Senators @ New York Rangers

The Ottawa Senators start a four-game road trip with tonight's game in New York against the Rangers. The Senators will also not play consecutive games at home for the next month, so this is going to be a huge several weeks for their season. The Rangers were riding the percentages even more than Ottawa earlier in the year, but that seems to be slowing down a little bit, with New York going 1-4-1 in their last six games.

Kyle Turris will be a game time decision with Patrick Wiercioch drawing in as a seventh defenceman if Turris can't go. Craig Anderson will make his 11th consecutive start. Here are the lines if Turris plays.

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

Methot - Karlsson
Cowen - Ceci
Borowiecki - Wideman

Anderson (starter)
Driedger

Some notes for tonight:

• Erik Karlsson has 32 points in 26 games. What can you do at that but laugh? He is also first in the NHL in assists.
• Mike Hoffman scored a goal for the fourth straight game. He has six goals in those four games with 24 shots, including seven shots in three of the four games. He is second only to Karlsson in points on the team.
• With Karlsson and Hoffman's exploits (as well as Bobby Ryan), Kyle Turris hasn't been mentioned much lately. Thankfully his injury wasn't serious or that would have been a huge loss.
• Last night was the first time the Senators gave up less than three goals since 21 November.
• Ottawa has scored three or more goals in eight of the last nine games.
• After another horrible night for the Jared Cowen and Cody Ceci pairing, the Senators have 39% of the shot attempts in 116 minutes of 5-on-5 with the pair together.
• In hilarious timing, since Don Brennan wrote an article about Karlsson's lack of goals, he has six goals and 14 assists for 20 points in 12 games.
• In addition to the own goal, Mark Borowiecki finally had his first shot on goal since 16 November!
• Zack Smith's dangle last night was quite a surprise wasn't it? My goodness.
• The Rangers aren't playing well, but Ottawa played last night and Henrik Lundqvist is Henrik Lundqvist. I expect this to be a very tough game./

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.