Gästebuch » The Ottawa Senators and the Tampa Bay

Lightning Bo Horvat Jersey , who joined the NHL as expansion cousins in 1992-93, are franchises going in different directions when they meet Sunday at Canadian Tire Centre.It will be the 2,000th regular-season game for each.The Lightning (9-3-1), coming off a 4-1 victory against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday, are among the favorites in the Eastern Conference this season and are in first place in the Atlantic Division.Article continues below ...The Senators (5-6-2), who had a promising start to a rebuilding season only to struggle lately, were crushed 9-2 by the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon and have lost five of their past six games. They have given up 30 goals in that stretch.The Lightning are trying to cope without Norris Trophy winning defenseman Victor Hedman, who has missed the past four games with an upper-body injury. The Lightning are 2-2-0 without him. His status will be updated early this week.Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 34 saves for his seventh win of the season against the Canadiens, but is expected to get the night off against the Senators. Louis Domingue will likely make his fourth appearance of the season. He is 2-1-0 with a 4.00 goals-against average and .887 save percentage.Lightning captain Steven Stamkos, who scored his third and fourth goals of the season against the Canadiens Youth Brandon Sutter Jersey , credited Vasilevskiy with the win.“We knew what to expect coming in,” Stamkos told NHL.com. “They were going to come out hard and they did, that’s why we have arguably the best goalie in the world on our team to give us a chance sometimes to catch our breath. And then after that I thought we did a good job of playing the right way.”The Lightning will be looking for a better start against the Senators than they had against Montreal.“It was a tough start for us,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper told the league website. “We must have thought it was a 7:30 start instead of a 7 o’clock.”Goaltender Craig Anderson will be back in goal for the Senators against the Lightning. He was pulled after giving up three goals on 10 shots behind a porous defense Saturday. The Sabres were fired up after a pre-game ceremony honoring Sabres forward Jason Pominville for playing his 1,000th game in the NHL on Thursday.After giving up 41 shots Saturday, the Senators are last in the NHL in shots allowed at 38.7 per game.“I think collectively, we weren’t ready for the emotional level that they had,” Senators coach Guy Boucher told NHL.com. “They came out as strong as we’ve seen all year and most probably because the players wanted to have a great night for Pominville.”“We’re obviously not the first team to do it, we’re obviously not going to be the last, but those can’t happen more than once in a season let alone a week Brendan Leipsic Jersey Kids ,” Senators forward Mark Stone told NHL.com. “In the Arizona game (a 5-1 loss on Tuesday) and this game, we were just flat coming out of the gate. Didn’t give ourselves a chance from the opening puck drop.”Ottawa has posted an all-time record of 899-837-115-148 over 1,999 games. The Lightning are 853-896-112-138 and have the lone Stanley Cup victory among the franchises, winning in 2004. TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point were terrific for Tampa Bay.The top line for the Lightning was much better than the leading trio for Chicago.Johnson scored twice, Kucherov had three assists and the Lightning beat the Blackhawks 4-2 on Friday night.Point and Ryan Callahan also scored for Tampa Bay, which improved to 13-0-2 in the past 15 regular-season meetings with Chicago. Louis Domingue stopped 30 shots.The Lightning (16-6-1) remained on top of the Atlantic Division, one point ahead of Buffalo.The Blackhawks dropped to 2-4-2 under new coach Jeremy Colliton, who took over on Nov. 6. Colliton has been playing Toews http://www.canucksshoponline.com/authentic-alex-burmistrov-jersey , Patrick Kane and Brandon Saad together in search of more offense, but Chicago is still struggling to score.Johnson, Kucherov and Point got the better of Toews, Kane and Saad for much of the night. Tampa Bay’s top line combined for three goals and seven points.“They’ve been playing really, really well since being put together and creating offense,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “It was an extremely big test tonight to go against that big line they’ve got of world-class players and they did a great job and it set the tone for the game for us.”The Toews line was on the ice for Tampa Bay’s opening three goals.“You’ve got to limit the mistakes and protect the house around your net,” Toews said. “We didn’t do that. Especially myself, being out there for three goals against.”Toews and Artem Anisimov scored for Chicago (8-10-5), and Corey Crawford finished with 25 saves.Johnson scored twice in the first period, including 29 seconds into the game with an open shot from the slot. He scored his ninth of the season at 7:15 http://www.canucksshoponline.com/authentic-brock-boeser-jersey , converting a quick one-timer off a feed from Point.“They are tremendous players,” Johnson said of the Toews line. “But I’ve got Point and Kuch on my line, so I feel pretty good about that as well.”Point made it 3-0 at the 10:05 mark with his 15th goal. After Chicago responded with Anisimov’s first goal since Oct. 27, Callahan capped the wild first period with his first goal since Oct. 21, also against Chicago.Toews got his 11th with 1:11 left in the second period, but the Blackhawks came up empty on two power-play chances in the third.“They were tough to handle,” Chicago defenseman Duncan Keith said. “They came out hard. They’ve done that several times this season. We needed to be better. We definitely played better as the game went on. The compete level was better.”NOTES: Lightning D Anton Stralman (upper body) and LW Ondrej Palat (lower body) remained out with injuries. Both are skating with the team and considered day to day. … Chicago rookie D Henri Jokiharju, second on the team with 10 assists, was a healthy scratch for the first time this season. … Kucherov extended his point streak to five games. He has two goals and 10 assists in that span. … Toews extended his point streak to six games. … Tampa Bay rookie D Erik Cernak finished with two assists for his first career multipoint game.UP NEXTBlackhawks: At Florida Panthers on Saturday.Lightning: Host New Jersey Devils on Sunday.