After a soul-crushing seven game road trip, featuring some of the most dreadful hockey this team has played in years adding to what has been one of the worst starts to a season in the last couple decades, the Ottawa Senators are coming home.
Considering the media circus this team is likely to face over the next few days, the whole team probably wishes they could extend the road trip by a couple weeks. Instead, they get the New York Rangers on a back to back, less than 24 hours after an embarrassing loss in Buffalo.
Welcome home, fellas.
What was supposed to be an exciting week for the franchise has instead turned into a bit of a circus. The NHL100 Classic was meant to be showcase for this city and this fan base and instead, it’s just league-wide attention at a time when things could not be going worse.
On the ice, the team is a nightmare and away from the rink, rumours of change at all levels of the organization, especially at the very top, continue to swirl.
Earlier today, the team made a couple minor roster moves, returning Ben Harpur to Belleville and recalling forward Nick Paul. That leaves Guy Boucher with six healthy defenceman at his disposal which means Thomas Chabot is back in the line up tonight.
A best guess at the line up for now.
Stone-Duchene-Ryan
Dzingel-Brassard-Pyatt
Smith-Pageau-Hoffman
Burrows-Thompson-Dumont/Paul
Claesson-Karlsson
Phaneuf-Chabot
Oduya-Ceci
Craig Anderson gets the start in goal for Ottawa. Puck drop is scheduled for just after 7:30 PM.
Oh and by the way, if you’ve ever wanted to sit in some great seats, tonight might be the night. The prices on StubHub are uhh…very reasonable.
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 16-11-3 (35 pts) | 9-13-7 (25 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.27 (6th) | 2.69 (24th) |
| Goals Against | 2.90 (T-15th) | 3.34 (29th) |
| Power Play | 20.2% (10th) | 15.6% (27th) |
| Penalty Kill | 82.5% (10th) | 76.7% (27th) |
| Shots For/Shots Against | 31.4 (15th) 33.0 (26th) |
30.4 (21st) 31.0 (9th) |
| Leading Scorers | Zuccarello- 24 pts Zibanejad- 22 pts Buchnevich- 22 pts |
Stone- 26 pts Hoffman- 22 pts Karlsson- 19 pts |
| Team Shooting % | 10.39% (9th) | 8.85% (18th) |
| Starting Goalies | Henrik Lundqvist 14-7-2 2.69 GAA, .916 sv% |
Craig Anderson 7-10-3 3.10 GAA, .895 vs% |
