The Ottawa Senators are back! Feel the excitement!
After a few days off for their holiday break, the Senators return to action tonight, kicking off a stretch of three games in four days. This team will need to get on some kind of run if they want to close the growing gap between themselves and a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
It starts tonight against the third place team from the Atlantic Division- the Boston Bruins.
If the Senators are going to chase down a playoff spot in their division, they pretty much have to win these head to head games against Boston.
They’ll play the Bruins twice in the next three days (the rematch is Saturday in Ottawa), once in January and then again in the final game of the season. Winning those four games has become essential.
In fact, if everything goes right in the next four days, that 13 point gap could be 7 by Sunday morning.
Also, you can check out the top prospects for the Draft in June here.
We’ll have to wait until the Game Day skate to find out what the Senators have in mind for their line up.
Ben Harpur, Andreas Englund, Chris DiDomenico and Danny Taylor were all reassigned to Belleville before the break and as of this morning, no new call ups have been announced. Filip Chlapik and Nick Paul are still with the team. Zack Smith is still out but Bobby Ryan was only expected to miss one game with a finger injury.
A best guess at the line up for now.
Ryan-Brassard-Stone
Dzingel-Duchene-Hoffman
Pyatt-Pageau-Chlapik
Paul-Thompson-Burrows
Oduya-Karlsson
Phaneuf-Chabot
Claesson-Ceci
No word on a starter yet. Craig Anderson was sick before the holidays but should be available tonight. Mike Condon looked solid in the last game before the break against the Panthers.
Puck drop is scheduled for just after 7:00 PM.
-Last night, the Senators announced they have signed Barrie Colts forward Aaron Luchuk to a three year entry level contract. Luchuk, who was a Captain with the Windsor Spitfires up until the trade to Barrie a couple weeks ago, has put up three straight 20 goal seasons in the OHL. As an over-ager, he’s in the midst of his best offensive season to date, registering 56 points through the first 33 games of the season.
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 |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 11-15-8 (30 pts) | 19-10-5 (43 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.68 (T-27th) | 2.91 (14th) |
| Goals Against | 3.21 (26th) | 2.59 (5th) |
| Power Play | 16.3% (25th) | 20.5% (11th) |
| Penalty Kill | 78.6% (24th) | 84.0% (4th) |
| Shots For/Shots Against | 30.6 (23rd) 31.5 (13th) |
31.9 (14th) 29.8 (3rd) |
| Leading Scorers | Stone- 31 pts Hoffman- 24 pts Karlsson- 23 pts |
Pastrnak- 33 pts Marchand- 32 pts Bergeron- 24 pts |
| Team Save % | .898% (25th) | .913% (T-11th) |
| Team Shooting % | 8.8% (T-18th) | 9.1% (T-13th) |
