After back to back wins over the Montreal Canadiens to end their preseason, the Senators now begin preparation for the regular season opener in Nashville on Thursday night.
It started this morning with the final round of cuts. Final cuts for now anyway. No real surprises either as the Senators sent Jean Gabriel Pageau, Buddy Robinson, Matt Puempel, Dave Dziurzynski, Alex Grant, Aaron Johnson and Fredrik Claesson to Binghamton of the American Hockey League. That leaves Ottawa with 23 healthy players on the roster. Marc Methot is still battling an injury and has allowed the Senators to delay a difficult decision for now. Methot will start the season on the injured reserve list.
Mike Hoffman and Curtis Lazar both stick around with the big club for the time being. Once Methot is ready to return, the Senators will have to decide what to do with one of the extra forwards and possibly with the eighth defenceman.
Here are the lines at this morning’s practice.
MacArthur-Turris-Ryan
Michalek-Zibanejad-Chiasson
Smith-Legwand-Stone/Condra
Hoffman/Greening-Lazar-Neil
Cowen-Karlsson
Phillips-Ceci
Borowiecki-Gryba
Wiercioch
