On Monday night, you may recall that the Ottawa Senators rallied from four goals down to defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs.
In the process, they sent the Toronto hockey market into a hilarious tailspin and seriously derailed the parade planning process that was well underway in the Big Smoke. On Wednesday night, the Senators soundly outplayed the “league’s best team” but came up a goal short. Despite the clearly underwhelming performance by the self-proclaimed contenders, it would appear that those parade plans are once again underway.
Until later tonight, anyway.
The Senators and Maple Leafs play the final game in their three-game series at the Air Canada Centre later.
Last night, everyone agreed that we would likely see the best of the Toronto Maple Leafs. After the way they lost that game on Monday, the thought was that the Leafs would be eager to prove themselves. Not so much apparently.
It was the Senators that came out and dictated the play. In fact, their first period may have been one of the best they’ve played all season. They came up a goal short but it was another step forward for a Sens team that has been trending in the right direction for the last couple weeks. What’s become abundantly clear is that this is a completely different hockey team than the one we saw during that nine-game slide.
One change expected to the Ottawa lineup tonight. Artem Anisimov was moved to the taxi squad while Matthew Peca draws in on the fourth line.
DJ Smith also mentioned that seven defenceman would take the warm-up. No game day skate but here’s how the Senators are expected to line up.
No Chabot tonight. Wolanin draws in.
Tkachuk-Norris-Brown
Paul-White-Dadonov
Stutzle-Stepan-Batherson
Peca-Tierney-Watson
Wolanin-Zaitsev
Reilly-Zub
Brannstrom-Gudbranson
Marcus Hogberg starts.
Puck drop is scheduled for approximately 480 seconds after seven. The game is available on TSN5, RDS and on TSN1200.
Here’s a table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 4-13-1 (9 pts) | 12-3-2 (26 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.28 (29th) | 3.53 (4th) |
| Goals Against | 3.94 (31st) | 2.65 (9th) |
| Power Play | 11.9% (27th) | 32.7% (T-2nd) |
| Penalty Kill | 75.0% (T-23rd) | 79.3% (19th) |
| Shots For | 31.7 (4th) | 29.3 (24th) |
| Shots Against | 31.1 (21st) | 27.9 (7th) |
| Leading Scorers | Tkachuk- 11 pts Norris- 10 pts Brown- 9 pts Chabot- 9 pts Dadonov- 8 pts |
Marner- 23 pts Matthews- 21 pts Tavares- 15 pts Nylander- 12 pts Rielly- 12 pts |
| Starting Goalie | TBD | Michael Hutchinson — -.– GAA, .— sv% |
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