After a disastrous road trip, the Ottawa Senators have now flipped the switch and are undefeated in the month of November.
They’re heeeeeeating up!
Okay, okay. It’s only been one game but it was a convincing two goal victory. Okay, maybe it wasn’t all that convincing but a win is a win, as they say.
The Senators will continue their pursuit of a no-loss November when they visit the Buffalo Sabres.
Under normal circumstances, a weekend trip to Buffalo would require at least four days of recovery but unfortunately the Ottawa Senators do not have that luxury. Immediately following tonight’s game they’ll fly back to Ottawa for a game against the high-flying Tampa Bay Lightning.
Ottawa’s schedule has been fairly light up until this point but business is about to pick up in a big way. They’ll play six games in the next nine days including this weekend back to back. The Senators actually haven’t had a back to back yet this year but when it’s all said and done, they will have played more of ’em than any other NHL team.
Good thing they had all those unnecessary days off in the first month of the season though.
So as we saw during Thursday night’s game between these same two teams, the Sabres are still approximately two-thirds garbage. But when they tap into that other third, as they did during the uhh third, they are capable of skating circles around our dear Senators. Hopefully they’re all tuckered out from that final frame barrage.
On the Senators side of things, they’ll do a little more line up tinkering. Alex Formenton and his blazing speed are gone and in his place steps…Tom Pyatt. Well, okay then. Just remember that when you see him out there in a top six role this afternoon, it’s all in the name of the rebuild and proper player development.
Tom Pyatt is scoring today, by the way.
The Senators made one other roster move, recalling Jack Rodewald from Belleville. He won’t play though as the Sens are expected to go 11/7. How those 18 line up remains to be seen.
A best guess for now.
Dzingel-Duchene-Stone
Pyatt-Tierney-Ryan
Paul-White-Boedker
McCormick-Paajarvi
Chabot-DeMelo
Lajoie-Ceci
Wideman-Jaros
Burgdoefer
Craig Anderson makes what must feel like his 100th start of the season. Puck drop is scheduled for just after 2:00 PM so you know what that means…
They celebrate TDs a little differently in the Canadian Football League. pic.twitter.com/oDCrGbHWyH
— ESPN (@espn) November 3, 2018
The game is available on TSN5, on the radio at TSN1200 and if you google “ways to fritter away a Saturday afternoon”, a bunch of streams of the game should pop up. Probably some pictures of donuts too.
Speaking of time-wasting, why not spend some of your day getting to know today’s Head2Head table??
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 5-5-2 (12 pts) | 6-5-2 (14 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.33 (10th) | 2.54 (27th) |
| Goals Against | 3.83 (10th) | 3.00 (T-16th) |
| Power Play | 25.0% (11th) | 20.4% (18th) |
| Penalty Kill | 69.0% (28th) | 76.7% (20th) |
| Shots For | 28.2 (27th) | 31.7 (14th) |
| Shots Against | 38.5 (31st) | 32.2 (19th) |
| Leading Scorers | Chabot- 15 pts Duchene- 12 pts Tierney- 11 pts |
Eichel- 14 pts Skinner- 13 pts Pominville- 10 pts |
| Starting Goalies | Craig Anderson 5-3-2 3.34 GAA, .914 sv% |
Carter Hutton 4-5-1 2.95 GAA, .910 sv% |
