The nice thing about the late start is the Ottawa Senators were able to pack all sorts of news into the extra three hours in the day.
One defenceman is back. One is gone forever. One is gone for the night. And another player is hitting the injured reserve list. Lots to talk about and the team is still a couple hours away from taking the ice. The Senators continue their five-game road trip with a stop in Los Angeles on Thursday night.
We’ll start with the good news. Thomas Chabot is back and for the first time all season, the Senators will have something resembling their full blueline. He’s gonna start on a pair with Jordan Spence, while Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub round out the top four.
It’s on the bottom pair where there a couple surprises. First, Cam Crotty is gone for some reason. The Senators tried to sneak him through the waiver wire and Minnesota stole him. As a general rule, losing defensive depth with ties to the area is never a good way to spend a Thursday morning.
The other surprise is in tonight’s lineup. Carter Yakemchuk is the odd man out on the blueline. He hasn’t been bad and he won’t sit long but still, probably not the move people were expecting. Would expect both him and Matinpalo to take turns though. Add in the injury to Warren Foegele and this is what you get against the Kings.
Zetterlund-Stützle-Giroux
Burakovsky-Cozens-Batherson
Grieg-Pinto-Amadio
Hodgson-Halliday-Cousins
Sanderson-Zub
Chabot-Spence
Kleven-Matinpalo
Jonas Johansson starts.
Pucks dropping at 10:08 PM so settle in. The game is on TSN5, on the radio at TSN1200 and on SensAfterDark.org for the adventurous type.