Basically, the Ottawa Senators cannot lose.
Rarely does a fan base find itself in such a carefree season. If the Sens win, that’s good because everybody likes winning. If they lose, well then we have the quest for a high draft pick to fall back on.
Any other fan base would look at a 7-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild and say, I feel physically ill after watching that. And while the 180 minutes spent watching that hockey game was quite unpleasant, there is always that silver lining.
Draft Day is only 209 days away, folks.
Yet when the puck drops in Calgary tonight, we’ll all be back to hoping the Senators can find a way to win. And if they don’t, that works too. Ottawa puts their 26 game winning streak on the line tonight against the Flames.
If the Senators are going to right the ship after that debacle yesterday, they will need to be a whole lot better defensively. That game against Minnesota was as bad as they’ve looked all year. They completely unravelled in the third period, which is something they haven’t done often this year.
Should be a motivated opponent tonight too.
Basically everything has gone wrong for the Flames early in the 2019/2020 season. On the ice, it’s been a struggle, as they come into this one with a .500 record and some work to do if they are going to make the playoffs. And in the last couple weeks, off-ice issues have made an already sluggish start that much worse.
Everyone will have a close eye on the Tkachuk brothers tonight.
This isn’t the first time they faced each other but you know both Brady and Matthew will have a little extra jump in their step tonight.
There’s no game day skate for the Senators today but DJ Smith is expected to meet with the media at 4:15 PM.
Expecting the same line up but we won’t know until a little later this afternoon.
Really just a guess for now.
Paul-Pageau-White
Tkachuk-Brown-Duclair
Namestnikov-Anisimov-Brown
Chlapik -Tierney-Ennis
Chabot-Hainsey
Borowiecki-Zaitsev
Brannstrom-DeMelo
Marcus Hogberg is expected to get the start for the Senators.
Puck drop is scheduled for just after 7:08 PM. The game is available on CityTV, which is apparently still a thing, and Sportsnet 360.
Now, the real reason you’re all here- the HEAD2HEAD table!
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 11-14-1 (23 pts) | 12-12-4 (28 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.62 (T-28th) | 2.39 (30th) |
| Goals Against | 3.08 (T-19th) | 3.04 (T-17th) |
| Power Play | 9.4% (31st) | 15.9% (24th) |
| Penalty Kill | 83.0% (13th) | 85.3% (4th) |
| Shots For | 30.0 (23rd) | 31.5 (14th) |
| Shots Against | 32.9 (26th) | 32.0 (20th) |
| Leading Scorers | Pageau- 19 pts Duclair- 15 pts Tkachuk- 15 pts |
Tkachuk- 23 pts Monahan- 20 pts Gaudreau- 20 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Marcus Hogberg 0-0-0 0.00 GAA, 1.000 sv% |
Mike Vernon (TBC) |
