This extended break has come at a pretty good time for the Ottawa Senators.
After a three game swing out West, the Sens had Sunday to recharge their batteries and now will have a few good days of practice to work on some of the issues the team has had through the first 17 games of the season.
And a quick look at the schedule shows that they’ll want to clean up those issues in a hurry with two of the league’s top teams coming to town this week. The Senators will host Filip Forsberg and the surprising Nashville Predators on Thursday night and take on a powerful St. Louis Blues team on Saturday afternoon.
Doesn’t get any easier after that with road games in Detroit and St. Louis on Monday and Tuesday next week.
Ottawa practiced this morning and seemed to be sticking with the same forward combinations for now. One change though as Marc Methot skated alongside Erik Karlsson for the entire practice. Chris Phillips was away so you don’t want to read too much into Methot’s presence at practice but I’m pretty sure he’s getting close to a return.
This is a quiet week for the Senators on the ice but could be an interesting one off of it as they need to make some tough decisions with Methot closing in on a return.
-The sudden increase in the amount of Colin Greening trade speculation is interesting and almost certainly being stirred up by the Senators’ front office. It sort of seems like Murray is using Dreger and Friedman to make sure the message is good and out there that Greening is available. It has been that way for some time but I think any conversation they have had to date involves Ottawa taking back a bad contract. Sort of like the Gonchar for Moen deal. If Ottawa can get a team to offer a mid-round pick and avoid taking on a contract, they’ll make that deal in a heartbeat. Friedman has named the Rangers and Blues as teams that showed interest in the past. I think Chicago and Edmonton considered him too. Interesting to note that Pierre Dorion was seen scouting a couple games last week including St. Louis/New York and Buffalo/Edmonton.
-The Senators are getting close to the point where they’ll have to make a move of some sort to get Methot back on the roster. I think part of the reason team and player seem to have slightly different interpretations of the timelines around the injury is the Senators would prefer to make another move before activating Methot. I don’t know for sure but I suspect Methot is closer to a return than the organization is letting on. He met with a specialist last week and seems to have ramped up his skating since then. He skated with Erik Karlsson at practice today.
