After those two losses against the Montreal Canadiens, the wind was really knocked out of Ottawa’s sails.
For a brief moment, it looked like the playoffs might be within their grasp. And then consecutive eggs against a division rival and it seemed as though another free fall was upon us. The news only got worse with the loss of Matt Duchene and Bobby Ryan and the big, bad Penguins in town.
But the Senators dug deep. The Senators bounced back. The Senators battled under difficult circumstances and came away with an important two points thanks to Ryan Dzingel’s overtime winner.
The yo-yo that is this Sens season continues against the Boston Bruins tonight at the Canadian Tire Centre.
Boston comes into this one sitting five points clear of Ottawa, holding down the second wild card position. Last night, they took it to the Toronto Maple Leafs, winning by a 6-3 final. The Bruins have a few injuries right now including Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara but they still have plenty of talent in their line up.
David Pastrnak is one of the game’s most underrated stars and Brad Marchand nose how to show up in big games.
Ottawa’s line up will remain a bit of a mystery until puck drop. This morning, the Senators announced that they recalled Erik Burgdoerfer from Belleville of the American Hockey League. Not entirely clear why with Christian Jaros already a healthy scratch last night. Certainly sounds like they could be down a right shot defenceman after last night’s game.
Guy Boucher is scheduled to meet with the media at 2:00 PM today so we’ll find out more then. A best guess for now.
Tkachuk-White-Stone
Boedker-Tierney-Batherson
Dzingel-Smith-Paajarvi
McCormick-Paul-Pyatt
Chabot-DeMelo
Lajoie-Ceci
Falk-Harpur
Mike McKenna is expected to make a rare start in goal for Ottawa. Puck drop is at an equally rare 5:08 PM.
The game is available on TSN5, RDS2 and can be steamed by placing about one inch of water in a pot and bringing it to boil.
For the second time this weekend, a HEAD2HEAD table that tells you everything you need to know about the two teams. YOU’RE WELCOME.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 15-10-4 (34 pts) | 13-14-3 (29 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.69 (27th) | 3.47 (6th) |
| Goals Against | 2.59 (3rd) | 4.00 (31st) |
| Power Play | 26.9% (6th) | 23.2% (10th) |
| Penalty Kill | 76.4% (26th) | 72.4% (31st) |
| Shots For | 31.5 (17th) | 29.6 (25th) |
| Shots Against | 32.0 (22nd) | 38.1 (31st) |
| Leading Scorers | Pastrnak- 34 pts Marchand- 27 pts Bergeron- 26 pts |
Stone- 34 pts Duchene- 34 pts Chabot- 33 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Tuukka Rask 6-6-2 2.63 GAA, .914 sv% |
Mike McKenna 1-1-0 4.66 GAA, .879 sv% |
