Think back to Opening Night.
Nobody gave the Ottawa Senators a chance. Coming into the season, expectations were remarkably low. Every expert had them pegged as a last place team. And with one of their biggest rivals standing in their way, the Sens shocked the world.
A 5-3 final. Nobody saw it coming. To this day, it’s a win that lives on as one of the most memorable in franchise history.
Everything that happened after that glorious night is a bit of a blur.
See, it turned out Rome was in fact, not built in a day. After beating the Montreal Canadiens in their franchise opener, the Senators lost their next nine hockey games. A 2-2 tie against the Buffalo Sabres briefly interrupted the losing but the team would go on to lose 11 more after that. When it was all said and done, they would go a ridiculous 21 games without a victory.
On November 25th, an incredible 48 days after their first victory, the Ottawa Senators defeated the New Jersey Devils by a 3-1 final. Peter Sidorkiewicz stopped 26 of 27 shots. Mike Peluso scored twice.
I guess what I’m saying is this is nothin’.
The Ottawa Senators look to snap their six-game losing streak tonight against the Vancouver Canucks.
No game day skate today and DJ Smith won’t hold a media availability until around 7:15 PM. Don’t worry about the lineup though because I’m sure you’ll all hate it.
Earlier this afternoon, the Senators made a roster move sending Christian Wolanin to the IR and activating Filip Chlapik from the taxi squad. So Chlapik likely gets his first game of the season. And with Wolanin out, seems like Josh Brown likely draws back in. Derek Stepan is the forward that comes out.
Here’s a guess at the lineup…
Tkachuk-Norris-Batherson
Stützle-Tierney-C. Brown
Paul-White-Dadonov
Chlapik-Paquette-Watson
Chabot-Zaitsev
Reilly-Gudbranson
Coburn-Brown
Matt Murray is the likely starter.
Puck drop is scheduled for the middle of the damn night. The game is available on TSN5, Sportsnet Pacific and RDS. It’s also available on the radio and on streaming sites so really, there’s no avoiding it.
The losing stops tonight.
Now, gather round the HEAD2HEAD table. Peluso, please say grace.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 1-5-1 (3 pts) | 4-5-0 (8 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.29 (T-27th) | 3.44 (8th) |
| Goals Against | 4.57 (31st) | 3.89 (29th) |
| Power Play | 13.8% (25th) | 14.7% (23rd) |
| Penalty Kill | 75.9% (21st) | 76.7% (19th) |
| Shots For | 30.4 (T-15th) | 30.4 (T-15th |
| Shots Against | 32.6 (24th) | 37.1 (31st) |
| Leading Scorers | Norris- 5 pts Tkachuk- 5 pts Zaitsev- 5 pts Paul- 4 pts |
Horvat- 10 pts Hughes- 9 pts Miller- 8 pts Boeser- 6 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Matt Murray 1-3-1 4.47 GAA, .862 sv% |
TBD |
-Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day. And if you’re new to the internet, it’s a day where all across social media and basically every media platform, people are raising awareness of issues related to mental health and mental illness. It’s an important day that helps to break down the stigma surrounding the issue (for today, anyway) and raises crucial support towards mental health initiatives in Canada. While there have been valid criticisms of this day and of the company behind it raised over the years, the basic premise- raising money for mental health initiatives and starting conversations around mental health- is probably more important than ever. We’ve all gotten away from this recently but remember that the people you talk to in here are just people. Despite the online personas we adopt here on SensChirp, we’re all just people facing real-life issues and dealing with real-life feelings away from this site. Just…be kind to each other. Every year on this day, we try to put the chaos of the SensChirp comment to good use. I will be donating five cents for every comment posted today to the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health. Avoid “spamming” as much as possible though as the ol’ Disqus filter removes those and they won’t get counted.
