On Wednesday night, a late goal by Mikko Koivu sent the Ottawa Senators to another disappointing home ice loss.
The Senators now hope that a weekend away from the Canadian Tire Centre will help snap them out of this early season funk before they find themselves too far out of the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference. The important weekend back to back starts with a rare Saturday night game at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
The Wings have been solid in the early going this season, posting a 10-6-7 record which is good enough for fifth in the Eastern Conference. They are certainly happy about the switch to the Eastern Conference though because that same record would have them sitting in 10th in the competitive Western Conference. The Wings haven’t been great at Joe Louis Arena so far this season, posting a less than impressive 4-3-6 record. You’ll recall that one of those three regulation losses came against the Senators earlier this season.
Detroit will be without former Senator Daniel Alfredsson as he continues to nurse a fairly serious groin injury. Alfredsson mentioned that he’s hoping to be back in time for his return to Ottawa at the start of December. It would be a damn shame if Alfie missed his return to Ottawa.
After putting in a solid effort on the fourth line against the Wild, Mika Zibanejad has finally been promoted in the line up. Zibanejad will skate on a line with Milan Michalek and Jason Spezza. It’s a move that a lot of fans have been asking for but one that Paul MacLean has been reluctant to make so far this season. Here’s hoping the Coach gives them some time to build some chemistry as a line. The MacArthur-Turris-Ryan trio remains in tact while there is more juggling among the bottom six forwards. Here is how the Senators are expected to line up.
MacArthur-Turris-Ryan
Michalek-Spezza-Zibanejad
Conacher-Smith-Neil
Greening-Grant-Condra
Methot-Karlsson
Cowen-Wiercioch
Phillips-Borowiecki
MacLean will announce his starting goalie after this morning’s skate. Puck drop is at 7:00 PM tonight. The Senators are in Carolina to play the Hurricanes tomorrow.
- -The Senators have been slowly revealing details of their new jersey which they’ll wear for the Heritage Classic in Vancouver in March of next year. All the clues so far seem to indicate that the rumours of a white version of the current heritage jersey are true. We’ll know for sure when the jersey is released on Thursday of next week.
- -As some of you may have noticed, it has been a little quiet here over the last few days. Mrs. Chirp and I welcomed our daughter into the world on Thursday morning and are finally back home and settled in. Thanks to everyone that kept the site up and running during my time away and a big thanks to those of you that passed along well wishes in the comment section or on Twitter. There may be the odd delay from time to time but I suspect it will be business as usual here at SensChirp. Although to be honest, it took me about three hours to write this post this morning so we shall see.
