With the trade deadline now come and gone, the focus now shifts back to the team on the ice.
The days of wacky trade proposals are over for a couple months and now we’re left to evaluate and discuss based on what’s actually on the roster. And as you may recall (although it feels like forever since they last played) the Ottawa Senators have been playing pretty well lately.
They’ve won five of their last six games and managed to keep their faint playoff hopes alive for at least another week. It’s certainly not going to get any easier for Ottawa though as three of their next four games come against high-end opponents.
Up first- the St. Louis Blues.
While they haven’t been getting much respect in a stacked Western Conference, this Blues team has put together another solid season. They are a lock for a playoff spot and will almost certainly finish in the top three in the Central Division. Which lucky for them, means a first round date with either the Dallas Stars or the Chicago Blackhawks. Pick your poison, as they say.
Despite having a playoff spot all but locked up, this Blues team is pretty clearly in a second tier in the West, not quite as good as teams like Chicago, Anaheim, Los Angeles or Dallas. They don’t score a ton of goals (ranked 20th in that category) and they’ve been giving up more than usual too (21st). They’ve held it together most of the year thanks to solid special teams (8th on the power play, 3rd on the penalty kill) and solid goaltending from Jake Allen and Brian Elliott.
For the Senators, the challenge is now playing without their number one centre although some might argue that they’ve been doing that for months. Full credit to Kyle Turris for attempting to play through that high-ankle sprain but the timing was probably right to shut him down. He just hasn’t been able to get around the ice as well as he usually does.
With Turris out of the lineup, Nick Paul gets a chance to play centre. And with Shane Prince now on the Island, Matt Puempel again gets another opportunity at the NHL level. Here’s how Dave Cameron lined his team up this morning.
Hoffman-Zibanejad-Ryan
Smith-Pageau-Stone
Puempel-Lazar-Chiasson
Dzingel-Paul-Neil
Methot-Karlsson
Phaneuf-Ceci
Borowiecki-Wideman
Craig Anderson gets another start in the Ottawa goal. Puck drop is scheduled for just after 7:30 PM.
