Less than an hour till game time?!
Holy hell, SensChirp…pull yourself together man. Millions of people are waiting for the 411 on this afternoon’s game. Okay, here goes nothing.
They may not have ended up with the two points but Wednesday night’s effort in Montreal was another strong one for the Ottawa Senators.
From the moment the puck dropped, you could tell that this Ottawa team came to work. Similar to the game against the Bruins a couple nights prior, the Senators had terrific pace to their game and a willingness to battle for loose pucks.
When the Sens are at their best, that’s sort of their defining characteristic. They may not have skill up and down the line up but they have a collection of guys buying into a system and believing they can win on any given night.
DJ Smith will be looking for another strong effort from his team when they play host to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Just the one change to the Ottawa line up this afternoon as Max Lajoie draws in for the injured Dylan DeMelo.
DeMelo broke his finger during Wednesday’s game against the Montreal Canadiens and is expected to be sidelined for 3-4 weeks. DeMelo doesn’t get a ton of credit but he really has been one of Ottawa’s most dependable blueliners this season. They are definitely going to miss him over the next month.
Andreas Englund was also recalled from Belleville this morning but won’t play.
No game day skate so a best guess at the line up for now.
Tkachuk-Pageau-C.Brown
Ennis-Anisimov-White
Namestnikov-Tierney-Duclair
Paul-L.Brown-Davidsson
Chabot-Hainsey
Borowiecki-Zaitsev
Lajoie-Goloubef
Anders Nilsson gets the start in goal for the Senators.
Puck drop is scheduled for just after 1:00 PM with the game available on Sportsnet, TVA, TSN1200 and a reliable sources tells me the illegal streams shall flow like water.
And now, a HEAD2HEAD table that if viewed upside down and in a mirror will show you the meaning of life.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 12-14-5 (29 pts) | 13-17-2 (28 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.45 (29th) | 2.69 (22nd) |
| Goals Against | 3.00 (T-16th) | 3.09 (T-19th) |
| Power Play | 18.0% (18th) | 9.8% (31st) |
| Penalty Kill | 79.5% (20th) | 82.2% (14th) |
| Shots For | 33.3 (9th) | 30.3 (23rd) |
| Shots Against | 29.7 (6th) | 32.1 (T-21st) |
| Leading Scorers | Nyquist- 19 pts Dubois- 18 pts Atkinson- 18 pts |
Pageau- 23 pts Duclair- 22 pts Chabot- 20 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Joonas Korpisalo 12-10-2 2.73 GAA, .906 sv% |
Anders Nilsson 8-8-2 3.02 GAA, .912 sv% |
