It’s sort of hard to believe but a glance at the schedule suggests the Ottawa Senators still have 45 games left in their season.
While some teams are well passed the halfway mark, both the Senators and the New York Islanders have some serious catching up to do. It’s going to make for a fairly ridiculous pace down the stretch with the Senators basically playing a game every second day until April. The schedule after the all star break is pure chaos. Three games in four nights? You bet. Five in six? For sure. Double headers? Probably.
What I’m saying is, hope ya like the Sens. Maybe even time to get a new hat, actually. Because you’re gonna be seeing a lot of them in the next few months.
The Ottawa Senators host the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday at 12:30 PM for some reason.
Before getting into today’s game day details, a word about the Anaheim Ducks. Hate ’em. And always will. While obviously not a rival of the Senators, it’s impossible to ever really forgive the team that stole your Stanley Cup. And although I did attempt to steal it back, while accidentally attending the Stanley Cup party of a local Anaheim Duck, I’ll never really get over it.
Here’s Stanley and I sharing a moment, only seconds before I was politely asked to uhh put down the Cup and leave.
Ah memories.
DJ Smith just wrapped up his early media availability and as expected, the team will be without Josh Norris for this one. At this point, they are hoping to get him back after the All Star break but his status is still very up in the air. Sounds like they want to take a closer look at the MRI he had done yesterday. DJ did confirm it’s a shoulder injury though. Remember, Norris has had issues with his shoulder in the past.
For those keep tracking at home, Ottawa’s top three centres are now all out with shoulder injuries. Not sure if the whole team is cursed but their shoulders shure as shit shertainly are. Ugh. Shorry.
With Norris on the sidelines, the Senators have pulled Mark Kastelic from the taxi squad. He’ll make his NHL debut this afternoon. Meanwhile on the blueline, Erik Brannstrom misses another game in COVID protocol but it sounds like he should be back for Ottawa’s next game vs. Edmonton.
Here’s a guess at how the Senators may line up for this one. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what they’ll do with the forwards today.
Tkachuk-Stützle-Ennis
Sanford-Paul-Watson
Formenton-Tierney-Sokolov
Kastelic-Bishop-Gaudette
Chabot-Thomson
Holden-Zub
Mete-Brown
Yikles.
Anton Forsberg gets the start in goal for Ottawa.
Puck drop is scheduled for 12:30 PM. Coffee? Beer? It’s your call really. Remember though, the game is on CBC and Sportsnet, so alcohol may be required. Dean and Gord have the call on TSN1200 and streams are very teebeedee because I’m not sure internet pirates are even awake at this hour.
Just rolling out of bed and wondering how these two teams match-up? Let the HEAD2HEAD table fill in some of those blanks.
| HAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 22-16-8 (52 pts) | 13-20-4 (30 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.93 (17th) | 2.81 (21st) |
| Goals Against | 2.83 (15th) | 3.43 (T-26th) |
| Power Play | 25.4% (8th) | 18.5% (20th) |
| Penalty Kill | 82.9% (9th) | 80.3% (T-16th) |
| Shots For | 30.5 (18th) | 30.2 (20th) |
| Shots Against | 33.1 (26th) | 33.6 (27th) |
| Leading Scorers | Terry- 40 pts Zegras- 32 pts Getzlaf- 26 pts Shattenkirk- 26 pts Milano- 25 pts |
Batherson- 34 pts Tkachuk- 27 pts Norris- 26 pts Chabot- 20 pts Stützle- 20 pts |
| Starting Goalie | John Gibson 14-10-7 2.56 GAA, .920 sv% |
Anton Forsberg 7-6-1 3.01 GAA, .912 sv% |
