It’s amazing how quickly the Ottawa Senators went from “one of the league’s most pleasant surprises” to “yea that’s about right”.
The free-falling Senators look to right the ship as they visit the equally disheveled Philadelphia Flyers.
After last night’s loss at MSG the Sens have dropped four straight games and have that look of a team that might never win again.
A lot of the positive energy from the early part of the season has evaporated and the holes in the roster are becoming more and more apparent. To say that this road trip has been a struggle would be an understatement. They’ve been outscored 16-10 over the last three games and while they continue to hang around, they’ve been chasing the game pretty much the entire trip.
The good news is tonight’s opposition has had their own fair share of struggles so far this year.
Philadelphia sits dead last in the Metropolitan Division and they just fired their General Manager. Basically Gritty is the only thing holding that franchise together right now.
With two teams as evenly matched as the Sens and Flyers appear to be, special teams could be the difference. And that’s where the Senators hope that their penalty killing advantage gives them an edge. Ottawa has killed off 70.1% of opposition power plays this year while Philadelphia has only managed to kill off 69.7%. How embarrassing for them.
No game day skate so the line up will be a bit of a mystery till puck drop. Guy Boucher will meet with the media at 12:30 PM to outline any potential line up changes. And because Boucher is slacking, I’ll go ahead and make the line up for him.
Dzingel-Duchene-Batherson
Tkachuk-White-Stone
Boedker-Tierney-Ryan
Pyatt-Smith-Paajarvi
Chabot-DeMelo
Lajoie-Jaros
Harpur-Ceci
Mike McKenna is your likely starter. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:08 PM and the way these two teams defend, there will likely be another face-off at centre ice by 7:10 PM.
Game is available on TSN5, RDS2 and I reddit might be available online somewhere too.
Table time.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 9-12-3 (21 pts) | 10-11-2 (22 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.54 (3rd) | 2.96 (T-18th) |
| Goals Against | 4.33 (31st) | 3.57 (29th) |
| Power Play | 23.8% (9th) | 15.7% (25th) |
| Penalty Kill | 70.1% (30th) | 69.7% (31st) |
| Shots For | 30.1 (24th) | 31.6 (18th) |
| Shots Against | 38.3 (31st) | 29.8 (6th) |
| Leading Scorers | Duchene- 30 pts Chabot- 27 pts Stone- 26 pts |
Giroux- 28 pts Couturier- 18 pts Voracek- 17 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Mike McKenna 0-1-0 5.41 GAA, .862 sv% |
Anthony Stolarz 0-0-0 2.50 GAA, .943 sv% |
