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Despite receiving some unfortunate news on the injury front this week, the Ottawa Senators find themselves in an envious position as the 4 Nations Face-Off break nears: holding a playoff spot in the ultra-competitive Eastern Conference.

However, the Lightning are only two points behind the third-place Senators in the Atlantic Division. Ottawa will try to create some more distance between the teams on Thursday night when it faces host Tampa Bay in the finale of a two-game set.

The Senators and Lightning went at it on Tuesday, with Tampa Bay coming away with a 4-3 win to end Ottawa’s five-game winning streak.

Still, Ottawa is 10-3-1 in its past 14 games, and defenseman Thomas Chabot has been right in the middle of the Senators’ strong stretch of play. He has recorded one goal and five assists over his past six games.

“It’s my third year playing with him, and every year I thought he was a great player and doing a lot for our team,” Ottawa forward Claude Giroux said of Chabot, who had two assists on Tuesday. “Obviously, offensively he’s creative. He can skate. But his defensive play has been really good.”

Chabot has four goals and 22 assists in 53 games this season.

After losing Josh Norris (mid-body injury) over the weekend and announcing that the forward would miss “a couple weeks,” the playoff-seeking Senators saw forward Shane Pinto exit the meeting with Tampa Bay on Tuesday due to an upper-body injury after playing only 2:57. Pinto did not return.

Ottawa will do something that it has never done before on Thursday night, playing a second consecutive road game in the same city during a conventional regular season. The Senators stuck around the same city for multiple games during the abbreviated 2020-21 campaign, but that was due to COVID-19 health and safety measures.

The Lightning will be trying to put together a winning streak when the teams meet again, something Tampa Bay hasn’t had since it recorded back-to-back victories on Jan. 16 and Jan. 18.

Brandon Hagel broke a 2-2 tie with a goal at 1:56 of the third period for the Lightning on Tuesday, and Ryan McDonagh put the puck into an empty net at 18:25 for what ended up being the game-winning tally. Ottawa’s Drake Batherson scored just 15 seconds after McDonagh did.

Tampa Bay won without Conor Geekie, who was demoted to AHL Syracuse earlier Tuesday.

“This was talked about with Geeks in training camp, so the fact that he was here 50 games is a tribute to him,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper, whose club moved into the second wild-card spot in the East with the victory over Ottawa. “It’s all part of the process and all part of the plan. This was not stuff that was knee-jerk or anything like that.”

Geekie, 20, has contributed six goals and six assists in 49 games this season.

Tampa Bay is also dealing with a dose of the injury bug, as Nick Paul (undisclosed) left Tuesday’s game after just 1:17 on ice.

–Field Level Media