Without looking, can you name all the professional sports teams (NHL, NFL, NBA and MLB) that have a team nickname that doesn’t end in an “S”?
It’s okay, I’ll wait.
No prize to the winner but the first one to get the correct answer almost certainly gets an upvote from a shady bot.
The Ottawa Senators host the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night.
Fun fact- the Minnesota Wild retired the number one for “WILD FANS”. That will always be hilarious to me.
This concludes all the things I know about the Minnesota Wild. Oh, also, Wes Walz played there.
A little bit of roster shuffling for the Senators yesterday. As expected, Clark Bishop has cleared waivers and was sent down to Belleville of the American Hockey League. Bishop finished last year strong but just hasn’t been the same since returning from an injury early in the year. Hopefully he can get his game back on track down there.
Some good news on the injury front this morning as Thomas Chabot makes his return for the Senators. Victor Mete sits to make room.
Both Josh Norris and Colin White were on the ice for the morning skate and while neither has a date for their return, it’s pretty clear that things are at least trending in the right direction for both of them. The Senators don’t have a whole lot to play for down the stretch but the idea of having at least a few games with a full lineup is pretty exciting.
Dylan Gambrell won’t play tonight so it sounds like the team will have to recall a forward, likely Mark Kastelic. Here’s how DJ Smith had his team lined up at the morning skate.
Tkachuk-Stützle-Gaudette
Sanford-Paul-Brown
Formenton-Tierney-Ennis
Kelly-Kastelic-Watson
Chabot-Zub
Holden-Zaitsev
Brannstrom-Brown
Anton Forsberg gets the start for Ottawa. Matt Murray was expected to start but his wife had a baby last night so he’ll sit this one out. Filip Gustavsson has been recalled and will dress as the back-up.
Puck drop is scheduled for 7:08 PM at the Canadian Tire Centre. The Canadian Tire Centre is a hockey rink- not to be confused with an actual Canadian Tire where you would find out-of-date Sens merchandise and over-sized cutouts of players long since traded. TSN5 has the television broadcast, TSN1200 provides the radio feed and the streams are being served up by some very fine internet pirates.
Wondering how these teams match-up heading into tonight’s showdown but simply don’t have the time to look up your own damn statistics? The award-winning HEAD2HEAD table has you covered.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 31-13-3 (65 pts) | 18-26-5 (41 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.81 (3rd) | 2.63 (T-25th) |
| Goals Against | 2.98 (20th) | 3.16 (22nd) |
| Power Play | 21.2% (13th) | 16.3% (27th) |
| Penalty Kill | 79.1% (18th) | 80.5% (13th) |
| Shots For | 32.3 (12th) | 29.9 (T-20th) |
| Shots Against | 32.6 (24th) | 33.7 (27th) |
| Leading Scorers | Kaprizov- 62 pts Zuccarello- 52 pts Fiala- 40 pts Hartman- 36 pts Eriksson Ek- 28 pts |
Tkachuk- 36 pts Batherson- 34 pts Norris- 26 pts Stützle- 26 pts Brown- 25 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Cam Talbot (TBC) 19-10-1 2.91 GAA, 911 sv% |
Matt Murray (TBC) 5-9-2 2.69 GAA, .919 sv% |
