If you’re like me, you have spent a good amount of the last couple days just sort of staring longingly at that X beside the Ottawa Senators. That and resting and recovering from celebrating Saturday’s clinch.
Really need to be at 100% when the playoffs start later this week.
It certainly didn’t come easy for this year’s version of the Ottawa Senators. After breaking a long playoff drought last season, there was a belief or a hope anyway, that playoffs would become a guarantee around these parts.
But it was anything but that.
It became clear early on in the season that while the Sens were going to be competitive, nothing was going to come easy. Thanks to a dangerous mix of goaltending inconsistency, penalty kill struggles, off-ice drama and improved divisional rivals, Ottawa spent most of the regular season fighting for their lives. By mid-January, with the Sens stuck at the bottom of the Atlantic Division, it looked like it might not be their year.
Then they flicked the switch.
From that point on, the Ottawa Senators have been one of the league’s top teams and in basically every facet of the game. And that makes them a nightmare match-up in the first round of the playoffs.
But first, one more meaningless game against one more meaningless opponent.
Travis Green made a rare appearance on TSN1200 this morning a day ahead of the team’s regular season finale tomorrow night and had some good news on the injury front.
While he wouldn’t say for sure, it sounds like there is a decent chance that Tyler Kleven will be available when the Sens open the post-season against either Carolina or Buffalo later this week. He didn’t practice today but he’s been skating on his own and is trending in the right direction for a Game 1 return.
Meanwhile, it sounds like Brady Tkachuk is just fine too. He was back in his regular spot during practice today. Here’s how Green lined ’em up today.
Batherson-Stützle-Giroux
Tkachuk-Cozens-Greig
Cousins-Pinto-Amadio
Zetterlund-Eller-Foegele
MacDermid-Halliday-Hodgson
Sanderson-Zub
Chabot-Spence
Thomson-Matinpalo
Gilbert-Crotty
Ullmark
Reimer