Game 58 preview: Ottawa Senators @ New Jersey Devils

The suddenly injury-riddled Ottawa Senators will look to bounce back from Sunday's 3-2 home loss to Winnipeg in tonight's game in New Jersey against the Devils. Ottawa will be without the injured trio of Bobby Ryan, Mark Stone, and Mike Hoffman and have called up Casey Bailey and Max McCormick to replace them. With Tommy Wingels also expected to play, the Senators will likely return to six defencemen.

Here are the expected lines and pairings from the Senators. Note this is a guess as there was morning skate.

Dzingel - Turris - Pyatt
Smith - Brassard - Lazar
Wingels - Pageau - Bailey
McCormick - Kelly - Neil

Methot - Karlsson
Phaneuf - Ceci
Borowiecki - Wideman

Anderson (starter)
Condon

Some notes for tonight:

• Ottawa remains first in the Atlantic Division in terms of points/game. They are two points behind Montréal with two games in hand. However, the Panthers and Bruins have won five and four games in a row respectively to close within two points of Ottawa. The Senators have a game in hand on Florida and two games in hand on Boston.
• The Devils split a home-and-away with the Islanders since losing to Ottawa on Thursday.
• Given that both Mike Hoffman and Mark Stone travelled with the team, hopefully the injuries aren't too serious. Bobby Ryan will be out for a month with a broken finger though.
• Erik Karlsson is on a five-game points streak with seven points and 18 shots in that span.
• Karlsson's two assists brought him to 51 points for the season. He is the 40th defenceman in NHL history to have five or more seasons of 50+ points and one of 17 defencemen to do it by age 26.
• Since joining the league in 2009-2010, Karlsson leads all NHL defencemen with 436 points. Duncan Keith is in second place with 371.
• Since 2011-2012, Karlsson is fifth in the NHL in assists behind Joe Thornton, Nicklas Backstrom, Claude Giroux and Sidney Crosby.
• On a non-Karlsson note, the Senators have outshot the opposition by a margin of 152-103 over the past four games.
• Mark Stone has scored 22 times on just 108 shots this season. If there was ever an opposition where you might survive without your two best forwards, it might be against the Devils.
• After tonight, Ottawa will continue the road trip in the southern US with games in Carolina, Florida and Tampa Bay.
• If you think Devils games are boring, it might be extra boring without Hoffman and Stone. *whistles*
• The Senators are ninth in the NHL in points per game.

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