For like the fourth time this season, it appears as though the seemingly doooooooooomed Ottawa Senators are uh fine.
That ugly homestand is a thing of the past and now the Senators have won three of their last four and have things back on track. And not a moment too soon – the Sens sit four points back of a Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference and five points back of the Division lead. Although they have a couple games in hand.
They’ll look to continue their winning ways when they host the Connor Bedard-less Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday afternoon in beautiful Kanata, Ontario.
One big ol’ change to the Ottawa lineup this afternoon as Thomas Chabot is expected to play for the first time in like a month. And that game was his first in a couple weeks. Anyway, what I’m saying is we haven’t seen a lot of Chabot lately and that changes today. A huge boost to the Ottawa lineup and good news for Jake Sanderson, who has been eating up a lot of minutes in Chabot’s absence.
Assuming Nikolas Matinpalo is the one to come out but we shall see. No morning skate with the early start but let’s assume same lineup otherwise.
Tkachuk-Stutzle-Zetterlund
Perron-Cozens-Batherson
Amadio-Greig-Giroux
MacDermid-Halliday-Cousins
Sanderson-Zub
Kleven-Spence
Matinpalo-Jensen
This feels like a Leevi Merilainen, especially with the Senators in Boston tomorrow night.
Puck drop is scheduled for just after 3:00 PM. If you’re the pregame nap type, you might wanna get snoozin’. The game is available on TSN5, TSN1200, 104.7 or live and in the flesh down at the CeeTeeCee.
Wondering how these teams match-up but don’t trust the Google, AI-powered robots, invasive social media algorithms or Bruce Garrioch? Put your faith in the HEAD2HEAD table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 13-15-6 (32 pts) | 16-13-4 (36 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.76 (25th) | 3.09 (13th) |
| Goals Against | 3.03 (16th) | 3.15 (21st) |
| Power Play | 20.8% (11th) | 25.7% (4th) |
| Penalty Kill | 84.2% (4th) | 71.1% (31st) |
| Shots For | 25.2 (30th) | 27.6 (20th) |
| Shots Against | 30.3 (29th) | 25.6 (4th) |
| Leading Scorers | Bedard-44 pts Bertuzzi-26 pts Burakovsky-22 pts Nazar-21 pts Teravainen-17 pts |
Stutzle-34 pts Batherson-32 pts Sanderson-26 pts Cozens-24 pts Giroux-20 pts |
| Starting Goalies | TBD | TBD |
