Game 27 preview: Ottawa Senators @ San Jose Sharks

The Ottawa Senators will start their annual California road trip beginning with tonight's game against the San Jose Sharks. Despite scoring five times on Monday in Pittsburgh, the Senators fell 8-5 while the Sharks are coming off a 2-1 win over the Montréal Canadiens. Although it was a tough loss, Senators legend Erik Karlsson scored four points to pass the Sharks' Brent Burns for the NHL scoring lead.

Ottawa will be without Craig Anderson for this road trip as he has left the team to be with his wife. Mike Condon is expected to start in net. Meanwhile, Curtis Lazar is also injured and Phil Varone was called up as a response. However, with Bobby Ryan likely returning from injury, Varone is unlikely to play. Here are the likely lines for Ottawa.

Hoffman - Brassard - Stone
Dzingel - Turris - Pyatt
Smith - Pageau - Ryan
Robinson - Kelly - Neil

Englund/Phaneuf - Karlsson
Borowiecki - Ceci
Phaneuf - Wideman

Condon (starter)
Hammond

Some notes for tonight:

• Erik Karlsson has 24 points in 26 games. All of a sudden he is on pace for 76 points. Hooray!
• Before the 5-4 loss to Buffalo, the Senators were undefeated when scoring three times this season.
• Good guy Mike Hoffman has a point in five straight games. He has five goals and three assists for eight points in that span.
• Karlsson's 24 points is one more than the 23 combined by the rest of Ottawa's defence this season.
• The Senators power play is now up to 19th in the league converting on 16.3% of their chances. Hoffman has five out of Ottawa's 13 power play goals.
• Mark Borowiecki has been having a bit of a nightmare recently. He takes a minor penalty for roughly every 30 minutes of ice time.
• Karlsson's average shift length has dropped to 49 seconds this year. It was 64 seconds last season.
• Tonight will be Chris Neil's 999th career game. I would love Pierre Dorion forever if Neil was taken out in the pregame warmups before Saturday's game and traded. :-)
• Since the start of 2013-2014, Hoffman is tied for 17th in the NHL with 65 goals. Among forwards, he is also 26th in shots on goal in that span.
• Bobby Ryan returns to the lineup with eights points in 21 games. He also has only 34 shots on goal. He hasn't averaged fewer than two shots per game since getting 37 in 23 games as a rookie in 2007-2008.
• Mike Condon has a save percentage of 94.3% in six games with Ottawa this year.
• Brent Burns leads the NHL with 107 shots on goal./

Here are some stats for the two teams tonight. All stats are from NHL.com except Corsi and Fenwick are from www.puckon.net.