A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark. Or something like that.
When the Senators dropped that game to Carolina a week ago, it looked like they were completely cooked. Tank on empty, kind of thing. But instead they bounced back from that ugly loss with two of their biggest wins of the season. Thanks to those dominant efforts against two of the league’s best, the Sens have life.
They’ll look to keep it rolling as they welcome the New Jersey Devils to town on Saturday night.
As the last couple days have shown, there is no help coming from the out of town scoreboard. If the Ottawa Senators are going to dig themselves out of this hole, they’re gonna have to win a spectacular amount of hockey games. Not all of ’em but uh most. The good news is they only have to win one hockey game tonight.
We’ll assume same lineup for now. Ridly Greig missed practice yesterday but it sounds like it was just a maintenance day. Stephen Halliday was back on the ice but in a non-contact jersey. Something like this, perhaps.
Batherson-Stützle-Giroux
Tkachuk-Cozens-Greig
Amadio-Pinto-Zetterlund
Bourgault-Eller-Cousins
Sanderson-Zub
Chabot-Jensen
Kleven-Spence
Starting goalie is going to be interesting. Another spot where Linus Ullmark could make his return but that was a big ol’ win for James Reimer the other night. We’ll find out later this morning.
Puck is droppin’ around 7:08 PM. Sportsnet One has the broadcast, TSN1200 and 104.7 FM have the radio feed and if illegal streaming is your thing, links will drop in the comment section a little closer to game time.
Here’s how the two teams match up in something I am calling the HEAD2HEAD table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 28-24-2 (58 pts) | 25-21-7 (57 pts) |
| Goals For | 2.61 (28th) | 3.32 (9th) |
| Goals Against | 3.06 (15th) | 3.32 (26th) |
| Power Play | 22.2% (11th) | 22.4% (10th) |
| Penalty Kill | 79.6% (14th) | 72.2% (30th) |
| Shots For | 29.6 (5th) | 28.4 (13th) |
| Shots Against | 27.9 (16th) | 24.9 (2nd) |
| Leading Scorers | Hischier-41 pts Bratt-40 pts Hughes-36 pts Mercer-30 pts Meier-27 pts |
Stutzle-55 pts Batherson-45 pts Sanderson-42 pts Cozens-40 pts Giroux-37 pts |
| Starting Goalie | TBD | TBD |