After another frustrating loss, the Senators find themselves sliding down a slippery slope. With 11 games left in the NHL season, Ottawa likely needs to find some combination of eight points. Or ten to be safe.
Prior to this recent three game slide, that would have seemed like an easy task for a team that was playing so well. But on the heels of one of their most disappointing performances of the season, the Sens need to get things turned around in a hurry.
Looking at the schedule for the month of April it was easy to predict that this seven game road trip, while SBP is playing host to the Women's World Championships, was going to be a crucial stretch for this hockey team. The good news is their strong play on home ice has given them a bit of a buffer to work with but they still have to find a way to pick up points on the road.
The Sens are in Florida tomorrow at 6:00 PM and then make stops in Tampa Bay, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Boston to close out the road trip. Obviously all those games are but the match ups against the surging Flyers and the 9th place Devils have the potential to be a couple of the biggest games of the season so far.
The good news is, Craig Anderson is finally ready to return to game action and will get the start against the Panthers. Robin Lehner certainly wasn't at his best last night, surrending three straight third period goals to hand the Sabres the victory.
Despite their recent struggles, the Senators are still in a fairly comfortable spot. The website SportsClubStats gives them a 96.8% chance of making the playoffs. But even those reassuring percentages will continue to slide if the Sens can't pick up some points on the rest of this road trip.
It starts tomorrow in Sunrise…
SENS REMAINING SCHEDULE
@ Florida
@ Tampa Bay
@ Philadelphia
@ New Jersey
@ Boston
vs Carolina
vs Washington
vs Toronto
vs Pittsburgh
@ Washington
vs Philadelphia
