More than 140 minutes without a goal. Losers of 9 of their last 10. 27th in the league’s overall standings and now five points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
There was a time when we could refer to this as a slump but it’s pretty clear we are well beyond that now.
The season is slipping through their fingers and this tail-spin has completely derailed what should have been a promising season. Maybe expectations were too high on the heels of an appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals but I don’t think anybody thought they would be this bad.
They aren’t this bad. They can’t be.
Even under the best of circumstances, this would be a difficult back to back. But considering the way things have gone recently, the Ottawa Senators are obviously in tough against the West-leading Los Angeles Kings.
The Kings come into this one having won six straight, outscoring their opponents 23-7 over that stretch. No team has been tougher defensively and their goaltending has been the league’s best. Tonight, they’ll go with their back up Darcy Kuemper but that’s not real break for the Senators as he’s put up an impressive .944 sv% this season.
Other than a change in goal, the Senators will roll with the same line up that wasn’t good enough last night in Anaheim. That means Freddy Claesson is the odd man out again.
No game day skate so a best guess at the combinations for this one.
Ryan-Brassard-Stone
Smith-Duchene-Dzingel
Hoffman-Pageau-Dumont
Pyatt-Thompson-Burrows
Harpur-Karlsson
Phaneuf-Chabot
Oduya-Ceci
Mike Condon gets the start for Ottawa. Puck drop is scheduled for just after 10:30 PM.
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|---|---|---|
| Record | 9-11-6 (24 pts) | 18-8-3 (39 pts( |
| Goals For | 2.81 (21st) | 3.03 (T-12th) |
| Goals Against | 3.27 (T-25th) | 2.17 (1st) |
| Power Play | 16.3% (27th) | 17.0% (22nd) |
| Penalty Kill | 77.3% (24th) | 89.6% (1st) |
| Shots For/Shots Against | 30.4 (22nd) 30.2 (6th) |
31.7 (15th) 31.3 (13th) |
| Scoring Leaders | Stone- 25 pts Hoffman- 20 pts Brassard- 17 pts |
Kopitar- 34 pts Brown- 24 pts Doughty- 22 pts |
| Team Save % | .892% (29th) | .931% (1st) |
| Team Shooting % | 9.24% (16th) | 9.57 (13th) |
