To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best.
What seems like a generic statement about the nature of professional sports is actually a reference to a little-known clause embedded deep in the NHL’s founding documents.
In 1892 Lord Stanley of Preston, Queen Victoria’s appointed Governor General of Canada, donated a silver punch bowl worth about $50 that would be called the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup. The trophy, soon and forever dubbed The Stanley Cup, was to be awarded to the top amateur hockey team in Canada, with challenge matches determining the champions.
Because there were so many different leagues in the late 1800s, and no dominant league, the only way to have a national champion was to have Stanley Cup trustees (originally Sheriff John Sweetland and Philip D. Ross of Ottawa were appointed) determine the worthy challenger against the reigning champion. It was also possible for a team in the same league as the Stanley Cup champion to become champion by winning the league title against the Cup champs.
So I made a call to the Sweetland Family. The original and true trustees of the Cup. And they have deemed the Ottawa Senators to indeed be a worthy challenger. So basically, the Stanley Cup is on the line today. And when we win, we’re all taking a stroll downtown and dropkicking that damn thing right into the Rideau Canal.
The Ottawa Senators host the Tampa Bay Lightning at the CTC this afternoon.
No game day skate scheduled today because of the early start but here’s how DJ Smith lined them up at yesterday’s practice.
Tkachuk-Norris-Batherson
Formenton-Stützle-Brown
Sanford-Tierney-Ennis
Paul-Gambrell-Watson
Chabot-Zaitsev
Holden-Zub
Heatherington-Mete
Puck drop is scheduled for just after 1:00 PM so you’ll need to get your affairs in order far earlier than usual. The game is available on TSN5, RDS and on the radio at TSN1200.
Here’s a closer look at how these two teams match up via something I’m calling the HEAD2HEAD table. It’s a collection of high-level and easily accessible statistics displayed in a generic WordPress style table. It’s innovative, it’s cutting edge and it has basically changed the blog game as we know it. Or something like that.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 17-5-4 (38 pts) | 7-16-1 (15 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.35 (8th) | 2.58 (26th) |
| Goals Against | 2.62 (8th) | 3.88 (32nd) |
| Power Play | 19.7% (15th) | 17.5% (21st) |
| Penalty Kill | 81.6% (16th) | 73.6% (28th) |
| Shots For | 29.5 (21st) | 28.6 (27th) |
| Shots Against | 30.3 (10th) | 34.1 (30th) |
| Leading Scorers | Stamkos- 32 pts Hedman- 27 pts Kilorn- 23 pts Palat- 18 pts Cirelli- 17 pts |
Batherson- 21 pts Tkachuk- 18 pts Norris- 18 pts Brown- 13 pts Chabot- 12 pts |
| Starting Goalie | TBD | TBD |
