Hello Friends.
Just three games now separate us and the Ottawa Senators from the NHL playoffs. Three games. One week. Eight year wait and I’m still not ready.
The Senators host the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday afternoon in Ottawa.
If you thought the last game was meaningless, well this one is on another level. Thanks to another Montreal loss last night, the Senators are now officially locked into that first Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference. They can still technically catch third overall in the Atlantic but that’s barely worth the trouble.
And so, the instructions for this game are the same instructions I give my kids every time they leave the house. Have fun and BE CAREFUL!
One lineup change at least ahead of this one as it sounds like Nick Cousins will make his long awaited return. Considering how long he has been out with that knee injury, he definitely needs these three games to get back up to speed. Brady Tkachuk is skating but won’t play today.
We’ll see how they arrange themselves closer to puck drop. I’d be finding a way to give both Stützle and Sanderson the day off.
Perron-Stützle-Batherson
Giroux-Cozens-Zetterlund
Greig-Pinto-Amadio
Highmore-Gaudette-Cousins
Crookshank
Sanderson-Zub
Chabot-Jensen
Kleven-Matinpalo
Gilbert-Hamonic
Feels like an Anton Forsberg kind of game.
Puck drop is scheduled for 1:00 PM. The game is on TSN5, RDS2, TSN1200 and on streaming sites all across the interwebs. Wondering how these teams match up and have a taste for neatly presented statistical tables again? The HEAD2HEAD table is that table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 33-37-9 (75 pts) | 43-30-6 (92 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.85 (23rd) | 2.89 (21st) |
| Goals Against | 3.43 (28th) | 2.78 (10th) |
| Power Play | 15% (30th) | 22.8% (15th) |
| Penalty Kill | 77.9% (19th) | 77.8% (20th) |
| Shots For | 26.9 (27th) | 29.2 (8th) |
| Shots Against | 26.8 (7th) | 28.7 (18th) |
| Leading Scorers | Konecny-75 pts Michkov-60 pts Tippett-43 pts Couturier-43 pts Foerster-41 pts |
Stutzle-72 pts Batherson-62 pts Tkachuk-55 pts Sanderson-54 pts Giroux-49 pts |
| Starting Goalie | TBD | TBD |
