Game 75 Hub: Ottawa Senators vs Tampa Bay Lightning

With 8 games to go and 12 points needed for the games to no longer matter, the Ottawa Senators need to continue to do what they've done all season – respond to a string of losses with a longer string of wins.

They'll take on the Tampa Bay Lightning for the 4th and final time this season, with the home team notably winning each game so far. Tampa's won 4 in a row and are looking to jump the Toronto Maple Leafs for the top seed in the Atlantic Division. Pretty high stakes for them, but it's not like they're in danger of missing the playoffs outright. For the 8th year in a row. With no more excuses.

Boy, I expect the players are feeling the heat right now, because the consequences for them missing the playoffs are actually larger than every other team in the race.

Brady Tkachuk and Nick Jensen didn't take part in practice today, and there's no confirmation just yet as to whether they'll play tonight. Linus Ullmark will face Andrei Vasilevskiy in goal. For what it's worth, the projected lines have Jensen but don't have Tkachuk.

Game Notes:

• I've seen some comments criticizing Tim Doesn't Shootzle this season, and yeah...less than 2 shots per game isn't ideal for a 39-goal scorer. He's at 21 goals this season in spite of the low shot total, so it's not like he's having trouble finding the back of the net when he actually decides to fire.
• Columbus (hosting Colorado) and Montreal (hosting Boston) are both in action tonight, and after Tuesday's setback, we can only hope for at least one of them to lose, in tandem with an Ottawa victory tonight. These 99% playoff odds are very hard to believe, but I'll take solace in the fact that both rivals have won 3 and 4 of their last 10 games, while Ottawa's won 5.
• Around here is where I'd point out a Sens player with a 3-or-more-game point streak, but after scoring a combined 2 goals on Tristan Jarry and James Reimer, I'm not physically able to do that.
• It's a 7:00 pm ET start tonight, and the game is available on TSN5, RDS2 and TSN 1200.

Stats:

• from NHL.com and NaturalStatTrick.com