Game 59 Preview: Ottawa Senators @ Carolina Hurricanes

Coming off a 2-1 win on Tuesday night against the New Jersey Devils, the Senators roll into Carolina tonight to take on the basement-dwelling Hurricanes. Carolina last played on Tuesday night as well, losing 3-1 against the Pittsburgh Penguins. With the Montreal Canadiens losing to the New York Islanders last night, the door is wide open for the Sens to jump into a tie for first place in the Atlantic division with a win tonight.

Coach Guy Boucher announced this morning that Mike Hoffman will miss tonight's game while it is doubtful that Mark Stone will play. Here are the expected lines and pairings based on Tuesday's game.

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

Methot - Karlsson
Phaneuf - Ceci
Borowiecki - Wideman

Anderson (starter)
Condon

Some notes for tonight:

• The Sens have strung together three straight wins on the road, while the Hurricanes have lost two straight at home and are 0-4-1 in their last five games.
• Despite being near the bottom of the league standings, Carolina has the second-best penalty kill - operating at a 86.3% success rate.
• Ottawa has won both of their previous meetings against Carolina this season by a score of 2-1. Coincidentally, both games included a goal from Dion Phaneuf and then Kyle Turris scoring the game winning goal.
• Mark Stone continues to lead the league with 78 takeaways, 20 more than second-place Filip Forsberg. Hopefully Stone will be back in the lineup soon enough.
• With tonight's game, Erik Karlsson will pass Kyle Turris for second place in franchise history with 308 consecutive games played. He is also on a 6-game point streak with 8 points over that stretch.
• Mark Borowiecki leads the league in hits by a wide margin with 257 hits. Trailing him is Matt Martin who has 30 less hits but in 10 more games.
• Dating back to his days as head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Guy Boucher holds a record of 12-5-0 against the Carolina Hurricanes. He's hoping #TheSystem will give him his 13th win tonight.
• While he is going to miss tonight's game, Mike Hoffman has struggled against the Hurricanes. He has only picked up one point (a goal) in ten games against them. The Canes are the only team that the Hoff has not recorded two or more points against in his career.
• Erik Karlsson has 155 blocked shots heading into tonight. He trails Niklas Hjalmarsson by just one blocked shot for the league-lead.
• You can catch tonight's game at 7:30pm ET on TSN-5, RDS or FOX Sports Carolinas

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