So the Ottawa Senators are kind of good now.
You might think this is a half-assed April Fool’s joke, but this is no laughing matter.
If the season was only like 40 games longer, there is a damn good chance this Sens team could make a push for a playoff spot. And if they snuck into the playoffs, they would probably win a round or two. And once you win a round or two, there’s really no telling what can happen. In fact, you only need to win four rounds to win a Cup.
So basically what I’m saying is this team would be a Stanley Cup contender if the season was 120 to 150 games long.
Okay, okay. April Fool’s.
But still, the Senators are actually showing some signs of life down the stretch. Now if only there was a way to play all their games against the lowly Toronto Maple Leafs, we might be in business.
But tonight, an actual Eastern Conference contender rolls into town.
The Tampa Bay Lightning, with 59 wins under their belt and a stunning 122 points, are the league’s best team and nobody else comes close. Speaking of a stunning 122 points, that also happens to be Nikita Kucherov’s point total this season. That’s eight points clear of the next closest guy in league scoring. That’s 76 more points than Ottawa’s top scoring forward. That’s absurd.
This is not just any run of the mill President’s Trophy winner. With four games left to play, they are closing in on the Detroit Red Wings record of 62 wins. In fact, with their next win, they will become just the third team in NHL history to hit the 60 win mark. This is one of the most dominant teams in the history of the sport.
Which will make it that much more amusing when the Senators win tonight.
With the pressure off and with a new Coach calling the shots, Ottawa has looked better lately. Yet with only four games left in the season, I am officially declaring Operation Don’t Finish Last a failure. They trail the 30th place Los Angeles Kings by five points heading into tonight and for some reason, the Kings continue to occasionally win hockey games.
Crawford will have his team on the ice for a morning skate in a little bit. A best guess at the line up for now.
Smith-Pageau-Ryan
Tkachuk-White-Gibbons
Balcers-Tierney-Veronneau
Duclair-Lindberg-Paajarvi
Chabot-DeMelo
Wolanin-Ceci
Harpur/Borowiecki-Jaros
Craig Anderson is expected to get the start for Ottawa. Puck drop is scheduled for just after 7:30 PM.
The game is available on TSN5, RDS2 and can be streamed via various stream-related streaming sites.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 59-15-4 (122 pts) | 28-44-6 (62 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.88 (1st) | 2.97 (15th) |
| Goals Against | 2.71 (7th) | 3.64 (31st) |
| Power Play | 28.5% (1st) | 20.3% (14th) |
| Penalty Kill | 84.8% (3rd) | 79.3% (21st) |
| Shots For | 32.3 (14th) | 29.8 (25th) |
| Shots Against | 32.1 (21st) | 36.0 (31st) |
| Leading Scorers | Kucherov- 122 pts Stamkos- 93 pts Point- 90 pts |
Chabot- 53 pts Tierney- 46 pts Tkachuk- 42 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Andrei Vasilevskiy 37-10-4 2.43 GAA, 925 sv% |
Craig Anderson 17-25-4 3.43 GAA, .906 sv% |
