Less than 24 hours after an impressive performance against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Ottawa Senators continue their preseason against another division rival.
The Senators host the Montreal Canadiens tonight at the Canadian Tire Centre, with the same two teams scheduled to meet tomorrow night back in Montreal. With a rare stretch of three games in three nights, you can expect that Paul MacLean will continue to shuffle his line up in order to keep the regulars fresh heading into the regular season.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in tonight’s line up comes in the form of the number one centre. Paul MacLean has elected to give Jason Spezza the night off and will instead put Stephane Da Costa between Milan Michalek and Bobby Ryan on the team’s top line.
While it's unlikely Da Costa is auditioning for a spot in the Sens line up, he certainly has an opportunity to show he can play in the NHL with tonight’s game.
He has actually been one of the more impressive players in this year’s camp and tonight he gets a chance to play with elite wingers. Bryan Murray has been pretty vocal about giving a guys a chance to play in the NHL, even if it’s not here in Ottawa. Da Costa might fit the mold as one of those guys that seems ready to play in the NHL but is the victim of a numbers game here in Ottawa.
Interested to see how he performs tonight. Here is how the rest of the line up will look
Michalek-Da Costa-Ryan
MacArthur-Turris-Conacher
Greening-Zibanejad-Condra
Kassian-Pageau-Neil
Methot-Karlsson
Phillips-Corvo
Claesson-Wiercioch
Craig Anderson will take the night off with some general soreness, as the coach called it. Nathan Lawson gets the start with Andrew Hammond dressed as his back up.
