Senators at Red Wings
A four-game slide coupled with winning streaks by a pair of division rivals has dropped the Ottawa Senators into the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. Ottawa can climb back into one of the top three positions in the Atlantic Division on Monday as it makes its final visit to Joe Louis Arena to begin a home-and-home series against the Detroit Red Wings.
The Senators fell to 0-3-1 during their skid with Saturday's 4-2 setback at Winnipeg and trail Boston (five straight wins) by one point for second in the division while also sitting behind third-place Toronto (three), with which they are tied in points, by virtue of the tiebreaker. Ottawa has gone 10 games without scoring more than three goals but hopes to rediscover its offense against Detroit, which has lost three in a row and will miss the postseason for the first time since 1989-90 - ending its 25-season streak. The Red Wings have three games remaining at Joe Louis Arena as they move to Little Caesars Arena for the start of the 2017-18 campaign.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, TSN5, RDS2 (Ottawa), FSN Detroit
ABOUT THE SENATORS (41-27-9): Mike Hoffman scored both goals in the loss to the Jets, giving him four in his last five games and pulling him within one of Kyle Turris (26) for the team lead. Ottawa's defense corps was dealt another blow Saturday as Cody Ceci exited the game in the second period with a lower-body injury. The 23-year-old already has been ruled out of the contest against Detroit and the Senators likely will need to dip into their minor-league system for a defenseman as captain Erik Karlsson (upper body) and Marc Methot (finger) also are sidelined.
ABOUT THE RED WINGS (31-35-12): Captain Henrik Zetterberg notched a pair of assists in Saturday's 5-4 home loss to Toronto to reach 500 career points at Joe Louis Arena and will hit the 500-game mark at the building on Monday. The 36-year-old Swede will reach 1,000 overall contests in the NHL should he play in each of Detroit's four remaining games. Goaltender Jimmy Howard and Andreas Athanasiou will also hit milestones against Ottawa as they will be appearing in their 400th and 100th career contests, respectively.
OVERTIME
1. Detroit LW Tomas Tatar leads the team with 23 goals and is three away from 100 in the NHL.
2. Ottawa LW Alex Burrows scored four goals in his first six contests after being acquired from Vancouver but is mired in a nine-game drought and is three shy of 200 for his career.
3. The teams complete their home-and-home set in Ottawa on Tuesday.