To the untrained eye, the start of the season has not looked great for the Ottawa Senators.
Except that’s only because you’re looking in all the wrong places. Sure they lost nine straight games and yea, they are in last place in the National Hockey League but you need to look a little deeper to truly appreciate the beauty of Ottawa’s start.
First of all, hockey is back! After more than 300 days without the Sens, we all get to sit down every couple nights and watch our favourite hockey team. Second, those beautiful, beautiful jerseys. They’ll wear the reverse retros this afternoon, by the way. And most importantly, the future, as in the players that truly matter in this rebuild, have all looked terrific. Oh and their two wins are against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens.
What more can you ask for really? Other than a quick nine-game winning streak to cancel out that unfortunate start.
The Ottawa Senators return home for a matinee match-up against the Montreal Canadiens.
On Thursday night at the Bell Centre, the Senators played their best game in weeks. And maybe their best game of the season. They played with structure, they outworked the opposition and most importantly, they finally got NHL-quality goaltending. Everything looks better when you’re getting saves.
They’ll look to build on that today against what should be a motivated Montreal team.
No game day skate for the Senators today but DJ Smith did just finish meeting with the local media and as expected, they’ll roll with the same lineup.
Here’s how the Senators are expected to lineup for this one.
Tkachuk-Norris-Dadonov
Paul-White-Batherson
Stützle-Tierney-C. Brown
Galchenyuk-Stepan-Watson
Chabot-Zaitsev
Brannstrom-Gudbranson
Reilly-Zub
REMEMBER, and this is very important, Derek Stepan is no longer wearing number 15. He is now number 21.
Matt Murray is expected to get the start in goal for Ottawa.
Puck drop is scheduled for just after 1:00 PM so you know what that means- DAY DRUNK. The game is available on TSN5, RDS, TSN1200 and il est également disponible dans des endroits ombragés sur l’internet.
Voici la table tête2tête.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 7-2-2 (16 pts) | 2-8-1 (5 pts) |
| Goals For | 4.18 (1st) | 2.45 (28th) |
| Goals Against | 2.64 (7th) | 4.55 (31st) |
| Power Play | 21.4% (14th) | 14.6% (T-21st) |
| Penalty Kill | 79.2% (19th) | 72.7% (26th) |
| Shots For | 34.7 (1st) | 30.5 (T-16th) |
| Shots Against | 28.5 (11th) | 31.6 (21st) |
| Leading Scorers | Toffoli- 13 pts Petry- 13 pts Suzuki- 11 pts Anderson- 9 pts Drouin- 9 pts |
Tkachuk- 7 pts Chabot- 7 pts Stützle- 6pts Batherson- 6 pts Norris- 6pts |
| Starting Goalie | TBD | Matt Murray 2-4-1 4.40 GAA, .866 sv% |
