With 50 games remaining in their season, time is already running out for the Ottawa Senators.
They come into tonight’s action trailing the 3rd place Boston Bruins by 10 points. Ten points out of the second wild card spot too. Not impossible but they need to get hot and in a hurry. At the same time, they are an equal distance from last in the entire NHL.
29th overall meets 1st as the Senators visit the high-flying Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Senators will clearly be an underdog in this according to the NHL lines but stranger things have happened. Not much stranger but as the old saying goes, anything is possible.
Ottawa got off to a good start against Minnesota on Tuesday night but the wheels completely fell off about half way through the game. It seemed like they were building off solid performance against the Rangers and Canadiens until the Wild scored five quick ones.
It has been that kind of season in Ottawa.
Tonight’s opposition has been the class of the NHL through the first half of the season. Led by the incredible play of Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos, the Lightning have been running wild on the opposition, scoring goals at a terrifying clip.
Ottawa will have to be at their absolute best to not get run out of the rink tonight.
#Sens Head Coach Guy Boucher updates the media on his line-up heading into Tampa Bay and reflects on the team’s effort as of late. pic.twitter.com/arb5Uv7hbn
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) December 20, 2017
Yesterday, the Senators recalled Filip Chlapik from Belleville of the American Hockey League. He wasn’t on the ice in Tampa Bay for practice so it’s not exactly clear whether they plan to use him tonight or not. By all accounts, Chlapik has been the most consistent forward in Belleville this season, putting up 15 points through 27 games.
Dion Phaneuf, Zack Smith and Gabriel Dumont all missed practice yesterday so the line up will remain a bit of a mystery until later today.
A best guess for now based on yesterday’s line combinations.
Ryan-Duchene-Stone
Hoffman-Brassard-Dzingel
Pyatt-Pageau-Burrows
Paul-Thompson-Chlapik
Oduya-Karlsson
Claesson-Chabot
Harpur-Ceci
Craig Anderson gets the start for the Senators. Puck drop is scheduled for just after 7:30 PM.
-Elliotte Friedman posted his latest edition of “31 Thoughts” and not surprisingly, there was plenty of Sens content in there. Perhaps most interesting was his specific reference to the Desmarais Family as one of the parties that might be part of a group interested in purchasing the Senators. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise as their name was mentioned previously by Darren Dreger and has actually been in the rumour mill as far back as the summer. You’ll recall that Desmarais was a key player in the DCDLS LeBreton bid and at the time, they made it known that they had an interest in purchasing the team. Seems like that interest is as strong as ever.
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| Record | 11-14-7 (29 pts) | 24-7-2 (50 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.75 (23rd) | 3.79 (1st) |
| Goals Against | 3.28 (27th) | 2.52 (4th) |
| Power Play | 16.1% (27th) | 28.1% (1st) |
| Penalty Kill | 77.2% (27th) | 78.5% (22nd) |
| Shots For/Shots Against | 30.7 (21st) 31.1 (12th) |
32.6 (11th) 32.0 (20th) |
| Scoring Leaders | Stone- 30 pts Hoffman- 24 pts Karlsson- 22 pts |
Kucherov- 48 pts Stamkos- 45 pts Point- 31 pts |
| CF% | 48.43% (22nd) | 51.21% (12th) |
| Team SV% | .894% (29th) | .921% (3rd) |
