It doesn’t get any easier from here. And honestly, it’s best not to look too closely at the road ahead.
The Ottawa Senators have scratched and clawed their way back into the Eastern Conference playoff picture but a glance at the next few weeks shows that the road ahead is fraught with danger. Games they should win look like trap games and the tougher match-ups look daunting, even weeks away.
But as a wise Sens fan once said, “maybe just maybe they can make it!”
The Ottawa Senators begin a five-game road trip with a stop in Chicago to take on the Blackhawks.
As you might expect, the Senators will go with the same lineup as Saturday against Columbus. That means Nick Holden is the odd man out on the blueline again and the recently-acquired Patrick Brown and Parker Kelly are the extras up front.
Here’s how the Senators are expected to line ’em up.
Tkachuk-Stützle-Giroux
DeBrincat-Pinto-Batherson
Joseph-Gambrell-Gauthier
Brassard-Kastelic-Watson
Chabot-Zub
Sanderson-Hamonic
Chychrun-Brannstrom
Mads Søgaard starts for the good guys. Cam Talbot is out with a lower-body injury and Kevin Mandolese is currently racing to Chicago to dress as the back up.
It might seem like this is a late Game Day post but the game doesn’t start till 9:00 PM so this is actually a little earlier than usual. So back off! The game is available on TSN5, RDS and on the radio at TSN1200. If streaming is more your thang, you can find the game on SensAfterDark.org.
A closer look at this evening’s match-up will now be provided now…to you… by me…via the HEAD2HEAD table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 32-26-4 (68 pts) | 21-36-5 (47 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.18 (15th) | 2.44 (32nd) |
| Goals Against | 3.11 (16th) | 3.60 (27th) |
| Power Play | 24.9% (6th) | 17.4% (27th) |
| Penalty Kill | 82.7% (6th) | 75.7% (28th) |
| Shots For | 33.3 (7th) | 26.9 (31st) |
| Shots Against | 31.7 (20th) | 33.7 (28th) |
| Leading Scorers | Stützle- 66 pts Tkachuk- 66 pts Giroux- 63 DeBrincat- 54 pts Batherson- 51 pts |
Jones- 29 pts Toews- 28 pts Raddysh- 26 pts Kurashev- 24 pts Athanasiou- 23 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Mads Søgaard 4-0-1 2.33 GAA, .922 sv% |
Alex Stalock 6-7-1 2.80 GAA, .915 sv% |
-A quick word of thanks for all the kind feedback on Norah’s debut article. She spent about an hour reading all the comments tonight (smiling ear to ear the entire time) and has already started working on her next post. That was seriously the SensChirp Community at its finest and it meant a lot to both of us. Thanks everyone.
