After stewing on that overtime loss for the last few days and like, also celebrating the holidays with family, it’s time to get back to work. And there is no easing into it.
The Ottawa Senators return from the break with a fantastic opportunity to add to the misery of their provincial rival. It’s the Senators and Leafs on a Saturday night in Toronto.
Even though they sit just five points back of a playoff spot with more than half a season to go, the Leafs and their fans seem to be teetering on the brink of a full on meltdown. Kind of a default setting of sorts. Bringing in a new Assistant Coach felt like a warning shot of sorts but should their struggles continue, like an embarrassing loss to a provincial rival on home ice for example, it feels like much bigger changes could follow.
We’ll set the “jerseys on the ice” line at 0.5 for tonight.
Let’s assume same lineup as before the break but we’ll keep an eye on the game day skate in case there is any tinkering on that fourth line or on the back end.
Tkachuk-Stützle-Zetterlund
Perron-Cozens-Batherson
Amadio-Greig-Giroux
MacDermid-Halliday-Cousins
Sanderson-Zub
Chabot-Jensen
Matinpalo-Spence
Expecting Linus Ullmark to start for the good guys.
Puck drops at 7:08 PM in the Big Smoke. The game is available on CBC, CityTV and Sportsnet and on the radio at both TSN1200 and 104.7 FM.
A closer look at the match-up via the HEAD2HEAD table.
| HEAD2HEAD |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 18-13-5 (41 pts) | 16-15-5 (37 pts) |
| Goals For | 3.22 (8th) | 3.19 (9th) |
| Goals Against | 3.14 (18th) | 3.33 (26th) |
| Power Play | 26.1% (4th) | 13.0% (32nd) |
| Penalty Kill | 71.7% (31st) | 83.3% (5th) |
| Shots For | 27.9 (19th) | 27.0 (22nd) |
| Shots Against | 25.4 (4th) | 31.1 (31st) |
| Leading Scorers | Stutzle-39 pts Batherson-36 pts Cozens-28 pts Sanderson-26 pts Giroux-25 pts |
Nylander-40 pts Tavares-32 pts Knies-30 pts Rielly-24 pts Matthews-23 pts |
| Starting Goalie | TBD | TBD |