There’s just something about a Sens game in Carolina that makes me wish I didn’t own a television.
Not sure what it is about the PNC Arena but it really has been a house of horrors for Ottawa. The Senators haven’t won there since 2015 and have two wins there in the last ten years, putting up a 2-15-0 record. This might explain my irrational fear of Erik Cole and Joe Corvo.
Either way, if you don’t have a bad feeling when you see the @Carolina on the upcoming schedule well then you haven’t been paying attention for the last decade.
The Ottawa Senators visit the Carolina Hurricanes tonight.
There are three things you need to know about the Carolina Hurricanes. They love to take shots on goal. They hate to give them up. And the analytics community loves to overrate them.
Those things may be connected, by the way. Despite everything going right for the Canes in the first half of the season and despite those impressive underlying metrics, Carolina still sits 7 points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. In fact, if Ottawa was to win in regulation tonight, they would be closer to Carolina than Carolina is to a playoff spot.
Okay, there are four things you need to know about the Hurricanes. They also do fun goal celebrations that make everybody really mad for some reason.
THIS IS HOW WE ROLL pic.twitter.com/t0AzatCrFn
— Carolina Hurricanes (@NHLCanes) January 12, 2019
But this is the Senators and Hurricanes damn it! There will be no fun had tonight!
No changes expected on Ottawa’s side of things following Wednesday’s win over the Colorado Avalanche. Although the Dads are on the trip so I hope Guy Boucher thinks long and hard about putting Keith Tkachuk and Craig Wolanin out there.
Game Day skate later this morning but a best guess at the line up for now.
Tkachuk-Tierney-Stone
Dzingel-Duchene-Ryan
Smith-Pageau-Paajarvi
Balcers-Boedker
Chabot-DeMelo
Lajoie-Ceci
Wolanin-Jaros
Borowiecki
Craig Anderson was taken off the IR yesterday and is expected to join the team on the road trip but he won’t play tonight. Anders Nilsson is expected to make another start in goal for Ottawa. Puck drop is scheduled for just after 7:30 PM.
The game is available on TSN5, RDS2 and can be streamed LIVE via this link.
The HEAD2HEAD table will automatically unlock once 20 people have confirmed that they have voted SensChirp for Blogger of the Year today! You can vote here.
Okay fine, here it is. But still….VOTE.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 18-24-5 (41 pts) | 22-19-5 (49 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.15 (10th) | 2.70 (27th) |
| Goals Against | 3.83 (31st) | 2.91 (13th) |
| Power Play | 20.9% (13th) | 16.7% (25th) |
| Penalty Kill | 74.8% (30th) | 79.1% (20th) |
| Shots For | 29.1 (24th) | 35.9 (1st) |
| Shots Against | 36.8 (31st) | 28.2 (1st) |
| Leading Scorers | Stone- 49 pts Duchene- 45 pts Chabot- 39 |
Aho- 51 pts Teravainen- 38 pts Williams- 27 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Anders Nilsson 3-3-0 2.35 GAA, .923 sv% |
Petr Mrazek 9-9-2 2.67 GAA, .901 sv% |
