With 26 games left in the regular season, the Ottawa Senators don’t have much left to play for.
There are a couple players auditioning for contracts, some prospects looking to carve out future roles with the team and a handful of guys wondering if each game might be their last in an Ottawa uniform.
It’s awkward. It’s unpleasant. It’s Ottawa Rising, baby!
The reality is a number of struggling teams will be faced with a similar sense of hopelessness down the stretch. If there is one thing left for Ottawa to cling to over the next couple months, it’s not finishing in last place.
So far, that isn’t going great. Because well, the Senators currently ARE in last place. But there are teams, like say the Detroit Red Wings for example, that remain within striking distance. And even though they’ll mostly be trying to lose games down the stretch, that four point gap seems daunting.
Senators. Red Wings. From the Pizza Pizza Palladium in Detroit.
Tonight’s stop in Detroit kicks off a four game road trip for the Sens. They’ll make stops in Winnipeg, Chicago and New Jersey before returning home to play Columbus next Friday. Will be interesting to see how many players they leave behind along the way.
For Guy Boucher’s team, tonight’s focus has to be on finding a way to shutdown Filip Zadina.
The Czech sniper has been filling nets with pucks and we all know how much he loves to do that against the Senators. In 0 career games against the Sens, Zadina has racked up a staggering 0 goals and on just 0 shots. That’s a goals-per-game average of 0.0 and a 0.0 xGF%/60.
A truly Grand performance for a player Rapidly becoming a real thorn in Ottawa’s side.
The Senators are on the ice for their game day skate at 11:30 AM so we’ll find out the line up then. As near as I can tell they are currently carrying 11 healthy forwards on the trip, three of which could be traded at any moment. A wild guess for now.
Dzingel-Duchene-Ryan
Tkachuk-White-Stone
Smith-Pageau-Paajarvi
Tierney-Balcers
Chabot-DeMelo
Lajoie-Ceci
Borowiecki-Harpur
Jaros
No word on a starting goalie yet. The puck is dropping, whether we like it or not.
And the game is televised too. And even if you manage to luck out and lose the remote, you’ll probably end up accidentally streaming the damn thing.
For the 57th time this season, here is a table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 21-30-5 (47 pts) | 22-28-7 (51 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.09 (11th) | 2.75 (26th) |
| Goals Against | 3.66 (31st) | 3.21 (23rd)` |
| Power Play | 20.% (15th) | 16.7% (24th) |
| Penalty Kill | 76.8% (26th) | 77.7% (T-24th) |
| Shots For | 29.7 (24th) | 29.6 (25th) |
| Shots Against | 36.6 (31st) | 32.8 (25th) |
| Leading Scorers | Chabot- 43 pts Tierney- 37 pts Ryan- 33 pts |
Larkin- 53 pts Nyquist- 47 pts Athanasiou- 35 pts |
| Starting Goalie | TBD | Jimmy Howard 16-15-5 2.76 GAA, .914sv% |
-It’s going to be interesting to see where Pierre Dorion is spotted in the next couple weeks. The Ottawa General Manager has been fairly active on the scouting front and that is expected to continue in the days leading up to the NHL Trade Deadline. Darren Dreger reported that Dorion is likely to attend the Avs/Jets game tonight in Winnipeg and last night, Dorion and a couple other front office reps were spotted in Belleville. While that could be a case of a check in on their own guys, it’s worth pointing out that it was the Syracuse Crunch in town. In the last couple days, there have some rumours suggesting the Senators might be talking to the Tampa Bay Lightning about a deal.
