This stretch run shan’t be for the faint of heart.
Thanks to a gutsy four-game winning streak with what could have been a series of crippling injuries, the Sens have pulled themselves all the way out of the conference basement and into a playoff spot in the East. Their reward for this prolonged stretch of excellence is 11 more games where they’ll need to uh do the same damn thing.
The Ottawa Senators return home for another big ol’ match-up against Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
At this point, I’ll go ahead and assume that like me, you are all spending most of your free time staring longingly at both the standings and the upcoming schedule. The stakes are clear at this point. The Sens have willed their way into a spot for now but they have a tough stretch coming up, games every second night and very little room for error. That makes tonight’s home ice tilt against the Penguins that much more important.
BIGGEST GAME OF THE YEAR? They all are.
A few updates this morning on the injury front and it’s not all bad. We’ll start with the bad news – Thomas Chabot had surgery on a fractured arm and is going to be out somewhere in the range of 4 to 8 weeks. Brutal. Some better news for Jake Sanderson though as he is expected to join the team on the upcoming Florida trip and could play as soon as this weekend. Dennis Gilbert is out 2 to 3 weeks and Lassi Thomson will be available to return soon.
All that to say, no changes expected to the Ottawa lineup.
Batherson-Stützle-Giroux
Tkachuk-Cozens-Greig
Cousins-Pinto-Amadio
Foegele-Eller-Zetterlund
Kleven-Zub
Matinpalo-Spence
Donovan-Yakemchuk
Linus Ullmark gets another start.
Puck drops at 7:08 PM. The game is available on TSN5 and on the radio at TSN1200 or 104.7 FM. For the more adventurous types, illegal streaming options will be made available closer to game time. Spicy!
A closer look at this evening’s match-up courtesy of the table everyone is talkin’ about. The HEAD2HEAD table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 35-20-16 (86 pts) | 38-24-9 (85 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.39 (7th) | 3.32 (9th) |
| Goals Against | 3.03 (13th) | 3.04 (14th) |
| Power Play | 24.1% (7th) | 22.8% (12th) |
| Penalty Kill | 82.9% (3rd) | 75.0% (30th) |
| Shots For | 29.0 (8th) | 29.0 (8th) |
| Shots Against | 27.4 (12th) | 24.0 (1st) |
| Leading Scorers | Crosby-64 pts Rust-58 pts Karlsson-54 pts Mantha-53 pts Malkin-52 pts |
Stutzle-73 pts Batherson-61 pts Cozens-51 pts Tkachuk-49 pts Sanderson-48 pts |
| Starting Goalie | Stuart Skinner 20-14-9 2.81 GAA, .889 sv% |
Linus Ullmark 23-10-7 2.73 GAA, .887 sv% |