Right now the Senators lead the season series four games to three while Montreal has had the lion’s share of the shot volume and scoring chances. While Ottawa may have enjoyed some lucky bounces along the way, wins against Montreal, Toronto, and Calgary have felt like some of the only bright spots in another long, losing season in Ottawa so I’ll take them any way I can get them. Ottawa probably won’t win the nerd stats battle but that doesn’t preclude scoring some garbage goals and getting an aberrational goaltending performance to compromise Montreal’s playoff odds. Ottawa ran these lines at practice yesterday:

Tkachuk - Norris - Batherson
Stützle - White - Dadonov
Paul - Tierney - Dzingel
Formenton - Pinto - Brown

Chabot - Zaitsev
Brännström - Zub
Mete - Brown

Murray
Forsberg

And Montreal most recently went with these lines:

Drouin - Kotkaniemi - Anderson
Toffoli - Suzuki - Armia
Byron - Danault - Tatar
Lehkonen - Staal - Perry

Edmundson - Petry
Chiarot - Weber
Romanov - Kulak

Allen
Primeau

Notes

• Victor Mete will make his first appearance as a visiting player at the Bell Centre after the Senators claimed the young defender off waivers on Monday.