Game 77 Hub: Columbus Blue Jackets @ Ottawa Senators

I wonder how many times this season that an opponent has lost a tough contest to the Maple Leafs the day before, increasing their motivation to play the Senators the next night.

The already-desperate Blue Jackets will be even more desperate after a 5-0 drubbing last night, and the Senators have to be ready to handle them after taking the last two periods of yesterday afternoon's contest off against the Panthers. Except you, Anton Forsberg. I appreciate you.

Lineups:

No morning skate today given the 5:00pm ET start and the back-to-back situation, so we expect the Sens to go with the same lines as last night's contest against the Panthers, but with Ullmark in net instead of Forsberg:

Meanwhile, here's how the Blue Jackets lined up in their loss to the Maple Leafs; again, we only expect a swap in goal with Daniil Tarasov coming in for Elvis Merzlikins but nothing confirmed as of yet:

Game notes:

• I've learned not to say "never" with these Blue Jackets, but they're in dire need of these two wins against the Senators to keep their playoff hopes alive and beat out Montréal for the final wild card spot in the East. Regardless of whether they get there, it's going to be hard to vote against Zach Werenski for the Norris Trophy. He's helped Columbus over-achieve by leading them in every meaningful statistical category, and averages nearly a minute and a half more ice-time per game than the next closest player (Cale Makar, 25:39). Hard not to think of the days we watched Erik Karlsson do the same thing for the Senators.
• Werenski is one of Columbus' five 20-goal scorers, as they've recorded 3.19 goals-per-game – their only upper-echelon team statistic. Werenski is 27 and the oldest of their 20-goal scorers. The others, with age in brackets, are: Marchenko (24), Fantilli (19), Johnson (21), and Voronkov (23). 27-year-old Mathieu Olivier and 29-year-old Sean Monahan are at 17 goals at the moment.
• I wonder if Belleville-killer Jet Greaves, who sports a 0.921 save-percentage this season in the AHL, helps improve their paltry goaltending numbers next season. If he had spent more time in the NHL than the six games he got, Belleville might've been ahead of Cleveland for the final playoff spot in the North Division...
• If the Sens win today and the Rangers lose tomorrow against the Lightning, the Sens could have an X beside their name as early as Tuesday night. They'll be without their captain again tonight, but I wonder if Brady gets back in as soon as they're in a clinching scenario or if they'll continue to rest him until the final week of the season.
• I wonder who else is nursing injuries for the Sens. They've looked more exhausted in the third period of games for about a month now, and we know both Jensen and Zub have missed practices for maintenance. Belleville is six points out of a playoff spot with six games left, so I wonder if Staios and Bowness will pull the plug on their season in order to give some of the NHL crew a rest.

This evening's game has a 5:00pm ET start and can be seen on TSN5 or RDS2.

Stats:

• from NHL.com and NaturalStatTrick.com