The Ottawa Senators played the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night.
At least that’s what the schedule said was going to happen. In reality, only one team showed up that night and it wasn’t the good guys.
The Sens have participated in their fair share of clunkers over the last half decade but it’s hard to remember one that ugly. The best players were bad, the supporting players were worse and the goaltending, special teams and coaching were all dreadful. Other than that though, things went okay.
The Senators will look to bounce back from that dreadful effort when they close out this three-game road trip in St. Louis.
Sounds like there will be a couple changes for the Senators ahead of this one. Artem Zub was injured on Saturday and he’s going to miss some time. Jacob Bernard-Docker has been recalled and is likely suiting up against the Blues.
One change up front too as Mathieu Joseph makes his long-awaited return. Could be another long-awaited return on the near horizon too with Josh Norris expected to play as early as Wednesday night.
More shuffling expected in the forward combos tonight and with only an option game day skate, we’ll have to wait until puck drop to confirm the lines. A best guess for now.
Tkachuk-Stützle-Batherson
DeBrincat-Pinto-Giroux
Kelly-Gambrell-Joseph
Lucchini-Kastelic-Watson
Chabot-Bernard-Docker
Sanderson-Hamonic
Brannstrom-Holden
We’ll find out the starting goalie later this morning but all signs point to Cam Talbot.
Puck drop is scheduled for 8:00 PM, thanks to whatever central standard time is. The game is available on Sportsnet again for some reason, on RDS2 and on the radio at TSN1200. The grainy internet-based streams of this evening’s match will be provided by our ol’ buddy Bort closer to puck drop.
Before we get to the main event (the HEAD2HEAD table), I need your help. Voting is now open for the Ottawa Awards, presented by Faces Magazine. SensChirp is up for three awards this year and it is critically important that we win all three. See, I told my kids I was an award-winning blogger but the last award was in 2015 and they are growing increasingly suspicious of my claims.
But YOU, yes YOU, have the power to convince/trick them. You’ll find SensChirp in the Blog, Twitter Account and Sports Podcast categories. Looks like you can cast a ballot from multiple email addresses but only once a day from each. Vote. Vote often. Get your friends and family to vote. Find unique ways to vote from multiple accounts. Hack in and manipulate the voting. Whatever it takes really.
You’ll find the Blog and Twitter Account categories here.
And the Sports Podcast category here.
Okay, now here’s the HEAD2HEAD table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 19-20-3 (41 pts) | 21-20-3 (45 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.95 (25th) | 3.09 (21st) |
| Goals Against | 3.26 (19th) | 3.59 (25th) |
| Power Play | 26.6% (6th) | 23.4% (12th) |
| Penalty Kill | 81.9% (8th) | 72.9% (28th) |
| Shots For | 33.4 (6th) | 28.8 (28th) |
| Shots Against | 32.1 (21st) | 32.4 (23rd) |
| Leading Scorers | Tkachuk- 41 pts Stützle- 39 pts DeBrincat- 38 pts Giroux- 38 pts Batherson- 37 pts |
Kyrou- 42 pts Thomas- 40 pts Buchnevich- 37 pts Schenn- 33 pts Tarasenko- 29 pts |
| Starting Goalie | TBD | TBD |
